Suherdjoko, Semarang – Residents of Rembang regency in Central Java have continued their protest against the planned construction of a cement factory in their area.

Last week, hundreds of residents staged a rally in front of the governor's office on Jl. Pahlawan, Semarang, protesting against the development of a cement factory in Watu Putih, Sale district, Rembang.

The protesters – who were mostly women – arrived in tens of open trucks. They were grouped under the Central Java Food Sovereignty Caring Community Network.

"We apologize to the public for the rally, but the situation has forced us to act," protest coordinator Gunarti, an activist from the Sedulur Sikep traditional community, said at the rally.

Protesters' spokesperson Zaenal said that all residents of the Kendeng mountain ranges region had rejected the development of cement factories in Rembang, Pati, Blora and Grobogan, all in Central Java, by PT Semen Indonesia.

He said the licenses to build the factories had been issued by then Central Java governor Bibit Waluyo. "As governor, Ganjar can revoke the licenses," Zaenal said, referring to current Governor Ganjar Pranowo.

The protesters, however, were not met by Ganjar, who was out of the province. They were instead received by Boedyo Dharmawan, an adviser to Ganjar.

Speaking to the protesters, Boedyo said that the case was already being heard at the Semarang State Administrative Court (PTUN). "Let's respect the PTUN. We will convey all the proposals and input you've given us," he told them.

Unsatisfied, the protesters demanded that construction work on the factories cease since the case was being heard at the court. Zaenal added that they gave the governor a week to stop the construction work, pending the court's decision.

The PTUN in Semarang decided last week to continue hearing the case. Presiding Judge Susilowati Siahaan turned down PT Semen Indonesia's objection questioning the court's authority to hear the charge against the environment license for the development of the cement factory in Rembang.

In the charge, Rembang residents together with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) asked the court to revoke the governor-issued environmental license for mining activities granted to PT Semen Indonesia in Rembang.

They said the license violated a number of laws, including Law No. 7/2004 on Water Resources, Law No. 26/2007 on National Spatial Planning and Provincial Bylaw No. 6/2010 on Provincial Spatial Planning.

Residents from 14 subdistricts in Rembang, Central Java, have staged a series of rallies since last year, protesting the plan to build a cement factory in Watu Putih. They claim that a factory would impact nearby water resources and thus directly degrade their livelihoods.

Walhi, an environmental NGO that has assisted the locals, estimates that the potential loss of water could reach 51 million liters.

The company remains adamant that the construction of the plant in Rembang will go ahead, despite the legal challenge.

Construction on the Rembang facility began in June, and it is expected to start production in 2016. The new plant will have the capacity to produce 3 million tons of cement per year. The factory is being built on 55 hectares of land located near a limestone quarry.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/22/residents-continue-protest-against-cement-factory.html

West Papua

Human rights group questions impartiality of Paniai shooting investigation

Jakarta Globe - December 30, 2014

Jakarta – A total of 53 people are being questioned over the fatal shootings of at least five young civilians by security forces in Papua earlier this month, police say, but there are doubts about the credibility and impartiality of the investigation.

Papua Police spokesman Adj. Sen. Cmr. Patridge Renwarin said the witnesses included civilians, members of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) and police.

He told Antara news agency that the National Police were questioning their officers and the TNI was conducting its own investigation into possible involvement of its soldiers.

The announcement comes just days after President Joko Widodo told a crowd in Papua that the civilian killings were deplorable and he wanted the case solved immediately.

Security forces opened fire on about 800 peaceful demonstrators, including women and children in Enarotali in Paniai district on Dec. 8. Five protesters were killed and at least 17 others – including elementary school students – were injured, according to a report from Human Rights Watch. Local media reported another died of gunshot wounds on Dec. 10.

Patridge said no suspects had been named and police had not figured out who was behind the shootings. A key part of the investigation seems to revolve around a bullet fragment found at the scene. "We have to wait for the bullet fragment to be examined," he said "the whole investigation depends on the result."

Victims and activists have said the incident was prompted with the beating of a 12-year-old boy from Ipakiye village, five kilometers from Enarotali, when the boy confronted a group of men in an SUV for driving at night with their headlights off.

The beating resulted in villagers marching to the capital to demand an explanation the next day. At around 10 a.m. the crowd spotted the same SUV and began attacking it. Police then opened fire on the unarmed crowd, witnesses said.

But the National Police chief, Gen. Sutarman, gave a different account of what happened, claiming the victims were planning an attack against the local military base, where locals suspected the SUV driver was hiding. Police stopped the crowd from advancing by setting up a barricade.

Sutarman has previously suggested the shootings could be the work of gunmen affiliated with the Free Papua Movement (OPM).

'Joint probe crucial'

Human Rights Watch Indonesia has called on Joko to form a joint fact- finding team to ensure a credible, impartial investigation into the deadly shootings. The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), police and military should all be involved, it said.

Komnas Ham is conducting its own enquiry into the incident, but the military has refused to cooperate and the Indonesia's 1997 Law on Military Courts prevents civilian investigators from speaking with military personnel at the scene of crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

"The Papua inquiry has been stymied because civilian investigators can't interview the soldiers who were at the scene," said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at the organization said. "A joint probe with police, military, and human rights investigators is crucial to ensure that all information is collected and that the findings will be taken seriously."

Human Rights Watch has also said numerous witnesses are afraid to speak out about the incident for fear or reprisals.

The Paniai shootings were one the worst acts of state violence in years. Hostilities between Papuan civilians and the security forces have frequently turned deadly since Indonesia annexed the region in 1969.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/human-rights-group-questions-impartiality-paniai-shooting-investigation/

Government halts division of regions in Papua

Jakarta Post - December 29, 2014

Jayapura – The government announced Sunday that it would halt the establishment of new administrative regions in Papua as the current ones had yet to improve people's welfare.

"The establishment of new [administrative] regions will be postponed to avoid a greater burden on the state budget," said Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo as quoted by Antara, who was in President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's entourage celebrating Christmas in Papua at the weekend.

Tjahjo said a review of the performance of new administrative regions in the country had shown that 60 percent of them did not have the ability to manage their natural resources and generate local revenues.

"As [new administrations] cannot increase local revenues, they cannot improve equal development and people's welfare, thus becoming a burden on the central government," said the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician.

Papua currently consists of two provinces, Papua and West Papua, with dozens of cities and regencies. Their failure to improve the welfare of residents had prompted requests to split the regions into smaller administrative areas.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/29/govt-halts-division-regions-papua.html

Widodo's condemnation of Papua shootings too late, says HRW

Radio New Zealand International - December 29, 2014

Human Rights Watch says the Indonesian President's condemnation of the killing of Papuan civilians by the military has come too late.

Joko Widodo, who has been in the province for Christmas celebrations, says the incident in Paniai in which 5 protesters were killed, and 17 people – including children – were injured was deplorable.

But Andreas Harsono says it took 20 days for the President to condemn the killings, and is questioning whether Mr Widodo will allow full access for a proper investigation.

Mr Harsono says the police have complained that they cannot properly investigate because they aren't being allowed to interview soldiers who were at the scene. He says the government also needs to ensure victim safety.

"The fear among victims is so high to the extent that they do not want to talk to police or military investigators because they fear reprisal if they speak up. That's why it is important for the government to send the witness protection agency to go to Paniai and to provide their protection if they want to speak up."

Source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/262777/widodo's-condemnation-of-papua-shootings-too-late,-says-hrw

Jokowi breaks silence on killings in Paniai, pledges to resolve shootings

Jakarta Globe - December 28, 2014

Banjir Ambarita, Jayapura – President Joko Widodo has told a crowd in Papua that the shooting of five young civilians in the province earlier this month is unacceptable, and that the government will soon form a fact- finding team to investigate the case.

Joko, who is in Indonesia's easternmost province to attend Christmas celebrations, said the incident, which occurred in the town of Enarotali in Paniai district on Dec. 8, was deplorable.

Security forces opened fire on about 800 peaceful demonstrators, including women and children. Five protesters were killed and at least 17 others – including elementary school students – were injured, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.

Joko, who addressed a crowd of hundreds at Mandala Stadium in Jayapura, the provincial capital, on Saturday, said he empathized with the grieving families.

"I want this case to be solved immediately so it won't ever happen again in the future," the president said. "By forming a fact-finding team, we hope to obtain valid information [about what actually happened], as well as find the root of the problems."

Joko added he wanted peace in Papua. "I want my visit to Papua to be useful, I want to listen to the people's voices, and I'm willing to open dialogue for a better Papua," he said.

Joko said the government needed to listen to Papuans in order to solve the long-running conflict in the restive region. "I think that the people of Papua don't only need health care, education, the construction of roads and bridges, but they also need to be listened to. That is what I will do in dealing with the problems in Papua," he said.

Hostilities between Papuan civilians and the security forces have frequently turned deadly since Indonesia annexed the region in 1969.

The president had earlier faced strong calls from Papuans to abandon his plan to celebrate Christmas in the troubled eastern province due to his previous muted response to the Paniai shootings, which were one the worst acts of state violence in years.

Police stopped the crowd from advancing by setting up a barricade, he said. "Amid the protest, some [unknown] gunmen fired shots from the hills far away, causing the 200 or so people to riot," the police general claimed.

He also denied that a high school student was among the five people shot dead by officers, despite photographs obtained by HRW clearly showing young men in school uniforms among those shot.

The coordinator of the Papua Peace Network, or JDP, Rev. Neles Tebay, welcomed the president's plan to form a fact-finding team, having previously criticized the police for being "very secretive" about their investigation.

"The president is willing to identify the problem, so surely this is a good commitment," Neles said on Saturday.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/joko-breaks-silence-security-force-killings-paniai/

Jokowi joins Christmas celebration in Papua amid shooting uproar

Jakarta Post - December 28, 2014

Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo attended the national Christmas celebration in Papua on Saturday, marking the first time the country's easternmost province played host to the event.

Jokowi, accompanied by First Lady Iriana, their children, Kahiyang Ayu and Kaesang Pangarep, as well as Trade Minister Rachmat Gobel and Cabinet Secretary Andi Widjajanto, arrived at Sentani Airport, Jayapura, at 2:30 p.m. local time.

Upon arrival in the province's capital, Jokowi received a traditional welcome as artists performed a traditional Papuan dance.

Local officials who welcomed Jokowi included Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe, Papua provincial legislative council (DPRD) speaker Yunus Wonda and Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Yotje Mende.

Shortly after, Jokowi and his entourage visited the Prahara traditional market in Sentani, Jayapura, where they attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of two markets in Jayapura and Sentani.

In a speech, Jokowi said he visited the traditional market to show his commitment to supporting the development of traditional markets in Papua. "My promise is to develop markets in Sentani and Jayapura – Today I have shown my commitment and [the construction] will start immediately," he said.

Jokowi also warned local government officials against charging illegal levies on mama-mama, local women who work as vendors in the market.

After wrapping up his visit at the market, Jokowi went directly to Waringin Sports Complex in Jayapura to deliver a speech to the crowd that began gathering in the morning.

In his speech, Jokowi said Papuans should take pride in the fact that the national Christmas celebration was being held in their province. "This year, we have to be grateful that our Christmas celebration is being held in Papua, in Jayapura," said Jokowi.

He promised that he would return to Papua by the end of next year, after vendors at Sentani Market asked him to come back to inaugurate the new market.

"They said that construction of the market would be completed by the end of 2015. Therefore, when it is inaugurated, it will coincide with New Year. So, I will return for the inauguration," Jokowi said.

Jokowi also finally broke his silence on the recent shooting incident, allegedly committed by military personnel, in Paniai Regency, Papua, which claimed the lives of five civilians.

"For me, the most important thing is not to let such incidents happen again because I want to start building here," he said.

Earlier, a number of church leaders in Papua urged Jokowi to cancel his plan to visit the province on account of their disappointment over the government's slow response to the incident, which also left 21 others injured.

Jokowi's public statement on Saturday was his first since the shooting incident occurred. He said he wanted to get a comprehensive account on the incident before issuing a statement.

"I was not in a rush to comment on the incident because violence occurs a lot in Papua. If I make a comment but it doesn't solve [the problem] then my comment serves no purpose," Jokowi said.

He also called on the local government to continue holding talks with the central government to prevent violence in the future. "Dialog is important so that the central and the regional [government] are in sync. No more violence in Papua," Jokowi said.

On Saturday evening, Jokowi attended the national Christmas celebration at Mandala Stadium, Jayapura – More than 400,000 participants took part in the celebration, which was estimated to cost Rp 20 billion.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/28/jokowi-joins-christmas-celebration-papua-amid-shooting-uproar.html

Jokowi visit an opportunity for Indonesia to tackle its Papua problem

The Diplomat - December 28, 2014

Prashanth Parameswaran – Indonesian president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is now on a weekend visit to the restive eastern region of the province of Papua to begin to address a half-century long separatist insurgency that continues to simmer there.

Jokowi is in Papua to attend national Christmas celebrations, which he decided to hold there for the first time (they are usually held in Jakarta). But he is also using the visit as an opportunity to confront Indonesia's troubling legacy in Papua, long a black mark on its human rights record.

For decades, a deadly cycle of violence has persisted in Papua due to socioeconomic and political grievances toward the state and the heavy- handedness of security forces, which appear to operate with impunity.

Jokowi had vowed to tackle the problem head on in the run-up to the presidential election, floating ideas such as lifting restrictions on the foreign press and constructing a new presidential palace near the Papuan capital of Jayapura.

Jokowi's weekend visit is a good chance to begin to deliver on that promise, and his full itinerary suggests that he and his team recognize that. On Friday, even before leaving Jakarta for Papua, he summoned church leaders to get their input on what should be addressed. Jokowi's trip itself will comprise mainly visits to three cities.

Following his arrival in Jayapura on December 27, the president will give a speech to open the Christmas celebration in Papua Bangkit Square at Sentani Airport. He will then visit the city before continuing on to Wamena in Jayawijaya regency and Sorong in West Papua, where the trip will end on December 29.

During the trip, he will engage in a range of activities, such as holding meetings with Papuan public figures and volunteers and commissioning several traditional markets. He will also reportedly conduct blusukan (impromptu visits) during his time there to hear the voices of local residents despite lingering security concerns – a defining feature of Jokowi's people-centric approach to governance.

Despite the encouraging signs so far, some are already questioning whether any of this symbolism will translate into substantive policy changes. The Jokowi administration has come under fire recently for its ineffectual response in addressing a December 8 incident in Paniai, where Indonesian military and police opened fire on hundreds of unarmed protesters, killing five. Some students and church leaders in Papua had even told Jokowi to cancel his visit in the face of this inaction.

Others say that he will need to follow his visit with tangible deliverables. Human Rights Watch implored Jokowi to create a joint inquiry into the December 8 shootings. And the Presidium of the Papua Council (PDP) urged him to consider releasing political prisoners and reviving a commission for truth and reconciliation.

"If all this could be accepted and implemented, the people of Papua would have the confidence in the president... Promises would not solve anything," Thaha Alhamid, the secretary general of the PDP, said earlier this month.

Source: http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/jokowi-visit-an-opportunity-for-indonesia-to-tackle-its-papua-problem/

Jokowi receives input on Paniai before flying to Papua

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Only hours before leaving Jakarta for Papua to attend national Christmas celebrations, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo summoned the leaders of the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) and the Bishops Council of Indonesia (KWI) to get input on what should be addressed in Papua.

Jokowi will fly to Papua on Saturday morning to attend festivities in the province, despite calls from a number of church leaders in Papua for Jokowi to cancel his plan, in an expression of disappointment over the government's slow response to the recent shooting incident in Enarotali, Paniai, in which five civilians were killed.

Jokowi is also set to undertake blusukan (impromptu visits) to hear from local residents during his two-night trip to the province.

During the Friday night meeting at the State Palace, Jokowi also met with representatives from two Papuan churches, Benny Giay and Karel Phil Erari, who rejected Jokowi's plan to visit Papua.

The PGI's Bambang Wijaya said the organization hoped that Jokowi's visit "will not merely be a ceremonial gesture, but will result in bringing peace to Papua, instead".

The PGI also submitted its findings on Paniai – which concluded that Indonesian Military (TNI) soldiers were responsible for the shootings – to the President.

KWI chairman Mgr. Ignatius Suharyo said he urged Jokowi to listen to the voice of Papuans, particularly those who understood about matters related to Papua, such as Pastor Neles Tebay and his rights group, the Peaceful Papua Network.

"I am sure the President will meet our friends there [...] not to give a solution, but more to hear them. Because a solution without first hearing [the problems] will be a mess," Ignatius said on Friday after the meeting at the State Palace.

He added that he perceived that Jokowi's visit would be "a part of a dialog which aims to stop violence and to [encourage] reconciliation."

"The President said he has received much information, but it is not yet complete. Therefore he is acting cautiously in order not to add more pain, and to seriously start to build trust, because the problem is trust," he added.

Jokowi wants the incident to be investigated thoroughly, and intends to find solutions to Papuan matters in general, Cabinet Secretary Andi Widjajanto said.

"We have received the PGI's preliminary reports on Paniai," Andi said after the meeting. "For sure, tomorrow's visit will be used by the President to really hear the voice of the Papuan people to bring about a peaceful Papua."

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has previously demanded that the government immediately set up a joint fact-finding team involving the national rights body, the TNI, the National Police and local leaders to probe the recent shootings in Paniai, after a Komnas HAM investigation confirmed soldiers were the primary cause.

The incident also resulted in injuries to 11 other local people, three policemen and seven soldiers.

Komnas HAM's investigation has yet to identify whether the gunshots were fired by members of the police or the TNI, who were at the location for security reasons.

However, TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya has said that the TNI had yet to receive any requests from Komnas HAM regarding the matter. He added that the TNI had set up its own investigative team, which was still conducting an inquiry into the incident. (nvn)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/jokowi-receives-input-paniai-flying-papua.html

Soldiers had role in shooting: Komnas HAM

Jakarta Post - December 23, 2014

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has demanded that the government immediately set up a joint fact-finding team involving the national rights body, the Indonesian Military (TNI), the National Police and local leaders to probe the recent shootings in Paniai, Papua, after a Komnas HAM investigation confirmed soldiers were the primary cause.

Komnas HAM's investigative team declared that the violent incident, which left five civilians dead and injured another 30, could have been prevented if soldiers had not exercised force in response to what Komnas HAM called a "minor notice" from the locals.

Confirming previous reports, the investigative team found that the initial provocation took place on the evening of Dec. 7 when a soldier, allegedly a member of the Uwibutu 753 Special Team military command post, driving a black SUV, was scolded by local children for not turning on his headlights when passing by a Christmas hut at a church in Enarotali.

Angered, the soldier returned to the site with eight of his fellow soldiers and beat the children, injuring 11 of them aged between eight and 16 years old. All of the minors are currently hospitalized at a local hospital.

"It was just a little thing, and the soldiers responded excessively," Nur Kholis, a member of the investigative team, told the press on Monday.

The violence that evening led to further violence. The next day, locals blocked the main road and disrupted traffic in Enarotali city in protest at the soldiers' brutality, demanding their arrest. But the protest later turned chaotic after gunshots were heard.

Four male teenagers aged 16 and 17 years old were shot dead on the spot during the incident. The deceased were identified as Alpius Youw, Alpius Gobay, Simon Degey and Yulian Yeimo. A fifth youth died later in hospital.

The incident also resulted in injuries to 11 other locals, three policemen and seven soldiers.

Komnas HAM's investigation has yet to identify whether the gunshots were fired by members of the police or the TNI, who were at the location for security reasons.

While the locals suffered from gunshot wounds, members of the police and the TNI were injured by stones thrown by the locals.

"We found no serious threats during the incident that would justify the police and the TNI using such excessive force to deal with the crowd," Maneger Nasution, who led the investigative team, insisted.

Security officers should have used a different approach when dealing with a conflict-prone area like Papua, he added. "Using violence is not a good approach," Maneger said.

Maneger explained that the investigation, which was conducted from Dec. 12 to 15, excluded the TNI's version of story, as the latter had refused to provide information to Komnas HAM during the process.

However, according to TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, the TNI had yet to receive any requests from Komnas HAM regarding the matter. Fuad told The Jakarta Post that the TNI had set up its own investigative team, which was still conducting an inquiry into the incident.

"We've heard about the alleged assault against the children. We don't want to draw conclusions until our [investigative] team has concluded its work. However, for the time being, much of the information circulated against our members is questionable. For example, why would a soldier drive at night without headlights?" Fuad said.

He explained that the investigation was expected to reveal all details regarding the violent incident including the shooting of the teenagers. "We will look very carefully at whether the shooting violated procedure. If not, then it was necessary for the sake of security. But again, let's wait until the investigation is completed," Fuad said.

Besides the separate investigations by the TNI and Komnas HAM, the Papua Police is also conducting its own investigation into the matter. The central government, meanwhile, has yet to take action in response to the incident.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/23/soldiers-had-role-shooting-komnas-ham.html

Aceh

Strict sharia forces gays into hiding in Aceh

Reuters - December 28, 2014

Gayatri Suroyo & Charlotte Greenfield, Banda Aceh – Overwhelmed by fear, members of the main gay rights group in Banda Aceh started burning piles of documents outside their headquarters in late October, worried that the sharia police would raid them at any moment.

Indonesia's northernmost province of Aceh had weeks earlier passed an anti-homosexuality law that punishes anyone caught having gay sex with 100 lashes. Amnesty International criticised it, saying it would add to a climate of homophobia and fear.

"We are more afraid, of course," said a 31-year-old transgender person who, along with three other members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) group, Violet Grey, burned the pamphlets, group records and other papers.

"As an institution, Violet Grey went as far as removing all documents related to LGBT. We burned them all," said the group member, who declined to be identified out of fear of being arrested.

The province's tight-knit gay community, estimated by some at about 1,000 people, has become increasingly marginalized since Aceh was allowed to adopt Islamic sharia law as its legal code.

Aceh was granted special regional autonomy as part of a 2005 peace agreement ending a three-decade old separatist insurgency.

After the anti-homosexuality law was passed in September, Violet Grey began warning its 47 members to keep a lower profile and for gay and transgender people to avoid going out together as couples in public.

No one has been arrested under the law, which Aceh officials say will not be enforced until the end of 2015 to allow residents time to prepare for it. But this has not eased the fear in the gay community.

Even before the law, life was not easy for gay people in the most religiously conservative part of Indonesia, the north of Sumatra island where Islam first arrived in the archipelago.

The gay community is a target of regular harassment from sharia police and residents. Transgender people are particularly vulnerable because of the difficulty of concealing themselves in public.

In 2011, a transgender make-up artist was stabbed to death in Banda Aceh after she held up a stick in response to a man's taunts.

Aceh authorities defend the law, saying it does not violate human rights because gay people are free to live together but just can not have sex.

The law also sets out punishment for various acts apart from gay sex including unmarried people engaging in displays of affection, adultery and underage sex.

"It is forbidden because in the sharia context, the act is vile," Syahrizal Abbas, the head of Aceh's sharia department, which drew up the law, told Reuters. "It brings unhealthy psychological impact to human development, and it will affect the community."

Outside Aceh, Indonesia is generally tolerant of gay people, particularly in urban areas like Jakarta. Engaging in homosexual acts is not a crime under Indonesia's national criminal code but remains taboo in many conservative parts of the country, which has the world's largest Muslim population.

Gay rights groups fear other conservative provinces, such as South Sumatra and East Java could follow Aceh's lead if Indonesia's new president, Joko Widodo, does not step in and overturn the law.

Widodo's administration is reviewing the law to see whether it violates human rights but it can only request changes and cannot overturn it, said Teguh Setyabudi, the home ministry's head of regional autonomy.

The Violet Grey member hopes the law will eventually be overturned so she can walk home without watching her back in fear. "Being like this is our fate, not a choice," she said.

"What makes people wearing a jilbab and peci feel so righteous that they can condemn other people as sinful?" she asked, referring to a woman's veil and a traditional Muslim cap worn by men.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/strict-sharia-forces-gays-hiding-aceh/

A decade on, Aceh raking over the ashes

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Hotli Simanjuntak and Hasyim Widhiarto, Banda Aceh – Exactly 10 years ago, modern history's biggest natural disaster struck the Indian Ocean and nowhere was the devastation and loss of life worse than in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

More than 221,000 people were killed and missing while over 800,000 were displaced and at least 477,000 had to live in refugee camps.

The disaster, however, had helped end a three-decade separatist conflict that had killed 15,000, as commanders of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) agreed in mid-2005 to a peace accord.

While the situation in Aceh is generally far better off than a decade ago, the province has seen several shortcomings that have held it back from unleashing its potential.

In the third quarter this year, Aceh's economic growth decelerated to 2.7 percent, almost half of the national's average of 5 percent, due to less contribution from oil and gas exports, as well as lack of investments and government spending.

Among the factors deterring foreign investments is the notorious red tape, graft and sharia, which discourage some western tourists from visiting.

As part of the many demands by GAM commanders in the peace accord, Aceh is the only Indonesian province imposing caning sharia, which includes canning for both Muslim and non-Muslim violators.

For investors looking to obtain business permits, many slip in additional funds for local officials, commonly known as "nanggroe taxes", referring to the province's official name.

The Acehnese regional leaders, most of whom are former GAM commanders, are also confused on how to spend the huge amount of money they receive from the central government.

As of November this year, the Aceh local government only managed to disburse 58 percent of a Rp 12.9 trillion (US$1.05 billion) annual budget.

"Sluggish budget disbursement has contributed to Aceh's economic slowdown over the past few years," said Hermanto, the head of Aceh's Central Statistics Agency (BPS), recently. Hermanto also said that the province remained dependent on its neighbors such as North Sumatra for basic food supplies.

As top government officials, foreign dignitaries and NGO representatives flock to Banda Aceh on Friday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the disaster, hope is abounds for renewed pressure for the local administrations to have a clear vision for the province.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has decided to cancel his attendance of the commemoration without giving a clear reason. Around 55 percent of eligible voters in Aceh voted for Jokowi's rival Prabowo Subianto during July's presidential election.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who played a leading role in the peace accord with GAM, is scheduled to attend the commemoration. Foreigners and residents from neighboring cities have also poured into Banda Aceh to attend the commemoration.

Female cleric Asmaiyah, 56, from Medan, North Sumatra, for instance, arrived on Thursday afternoon after travelling 450 kilometers in a bus along with 40 members of a Medan-based Koran study group. "We want to show our support to our brothers and sisters in Aceh by attending the [tsunami] commemoration tomorrow [Friday]," she said.

Malaysian national Mohammad Syahir Syuhada, meanwhile, said he had also been in the city since earlier this week with dozens of his friends to prepare a qasidah (traditional Islamic music) performance for the commemoration event.

The 20-year-old engineering student also said he and his friends were amazed with the city's transformation after the tsunami. "It is a beautiful city," he said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/a-decade-aceh-raking-over-ashes.html

Tsunami left lasting sorrow in Indonesia's Aceh

Sydney Morning Herald - December 26, 2014

Michael Bachelard, Banda Aceh – On a stone in the middle of a grassy field, a woman sits alone, remembering the boy she'll never see again.

Syarifa Fatimah Zuhra's eight-year-old son, Muhammad Reza Syahputra, died when the Boxing Day tsunami hit Aceh 10 years ago. His body was never found, so she comes to the children's section of the mass grave in Ulee Lheue to pray.

Caretakers tell us 14,264 unidentified bodies are buried in three layers in this mass grave alone. It's one of eight in the city of Banda Aceh.

Apart from her son, Ms Syarifa lost her husband and most of the rest of her family. "We don't know where their bodies are but whenever we pray, we hope God will pass on our prayers to them," she says.

A few kilometres away, on Banda Aceh's main park, Blang Padang, which became a vast open-air morgue in the days after the wave, dignitaries from Indonesia and the world gathered to remember. Indonesia's vice-president, Aceh's governor and two dozen ambassadors, including Australia's charge d'affaires, David Engel, came to "contemplate and be thankful", in the words of governor Zaini Abdullah.

Vice-President Jusuf Kalla – who was the deputy to a different president 10 years ago, when the tsunami hit – remembers coming to this field when it was heaped with death. An estimated 167,000 people died in Aceh alone, among at least 230,000 worldwide.

"It was a huge tragedy for humankind," Mr Kalla says, "To bury hundreds of thousands of people is something that is difficult; but rebuilding lives of millions of Acehnese is even more difficult." He recalls an hour-long meeting in Jakarta at which foreign governments pledged $US5 billion.

Being Aceh, though, the work of both humans and nature are the work of God. "The tsunami was Allah's test for Aceh and it passed," preacher Syech Ali Jaber told a packed mosque on Christmas night, the eve of the commemoration.

A Koran verse read out the following morning was even more explicit: "Those who deny their faith must expect punishment... They reject the verses [of Allah] so Allah torments them."

The idea of the tsunami as punishment reaches deep into society here, even into the families of those who died.

At the mass grave, Dahn Nuraini sits weeping with her family for her beloved older sister. Ms Nuraini's niece also died, though her body was recovered and buried by the family.

"I believe it was a warning because back in those days there were a lot of young couples who had parties or acted freely by the beach," Ms Nuraini says.

Was her sister a sinner? "When God sends a test, he doesn't just pick the actual sinners. It's random. It shows people that they have to introspect, to be better in the future."

Aceh is physically better than it was, she says, but has slipped even further into moral decline: "When it comes time to pray, people don't immediately leave the cafes."

When Ms Syarifa lost her son, "the sadness was indescribable". Reza was a good boy, "obedient, diligent", she says, and his death brought her close to despair.

In the depths of her mourning, "it felt like Doomsday". The only thing that got her through was God.

"We surrender everything to God... if we put our faith with God, we will be stronger to survive. If we didn't do that then, we would have been defeated by it."

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/tsunami-left-lasting-sorrow-in-indonesias-aceh-20141226-12e4fd.html

Boxing Day tsunami: Asbestos used in rebuilding effort funded by AusAid

The Guardian (Australia) - December 24, 2014

Kate Lamb, Jakarta – Dozens of buildings – including schools and local government offices – constructed in Indonesia after the Indian Ocean tsunami with Australian aid money were riddled with asbestos, Guardian Australia can reveal.

AusAid provided $36.4m for the construction of 170 public buildings as part of its assistance to the province of Aceh after the devastating tsunami of 2004.

But documents seen by Guardian Australia show the carcinogenic building materials were used in three schools, a midwifery academy, a pharmaceutical warehouse and more than 90 local village halls used by government officials across Aceh.

Construction of the buildings began in April 2005 but it was not until more than two years later, in June 2007, that asbestos was identified in the ceilings, dividing walls and external eaves.

All contracts between AusAid – which became part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) in 2013 – and its building providers explicitly banned the use of asbestos, which is prohibited in Australia.

But a Dfat spokesman acknowledged asbestos was used in the AusAid-funded buildings in Aceh. The materials were later removed.

"When, in 2007, AusAid became aware that products containing white asbestos had been used in 109 buildings in Aceh that AusAid had tendered out for construction, AusAid instructed the relevant contractor to replace all asbestos products at their expense," he said.

White asbestos is hazardous, but is not banned in Indonesia and is widely used in the construction industry.

Awareness of the risks of asbestos is relatively low in Indonesia, but when residents in Banda Aceh learned in 2007 that their houses donated by the Bakrie family institution contained white asbestos, they burned down 204 of them in protest.

A Guardian source close to the AusAid case said the contracting firm GHD was concerned the discovery of asbestos in their buildings could inflame feeling among residents and even lead to diplomatic tensions.

But the Australian government spokesman said relevant Indonesian authorities were kept fully informed. "AusAid worked closely with Indonesian government throughout the process of identifying the use of asbestos in Australian-funded construction and subsequent remediation activities," the Dfat spokesman said.

One local engineer involved in the removal in Aceh of the material containing asbestos, found in a product called GRC board, said the process was subject to strict rules.

"When you saw the procedure, it was like from another planet, special uniforms, everything special, just like when you are in a contamination area like in a spaceship movie," said the engineer, who asked to remain anonymous.

During the removal, workers wore protective suits and double filter masks, while the perimeters of the buildings were cordoned off with police tape.

Most of the 109 buildings were more than half finished when the removal started, but some of the local government buildings had already been completed.

While safety precautions were taken during the removal, the construction engineer expressed concern that labourers who initially installed the GRC product could have been exposed to the hazardous fibres.

"The concern first is for the labourers who first worked to put in the ceiling, because they cut the panels and installed them," he said.

When material that contains asbestos is cut, dusted, sanded or drilled, microscopic asbestos fibres are released. These fibres can be inhaled and can cause a range of fatal diseases, including lung cancer, which in many cases develop decades later.

After the removal of the material from the 109 buildings in Aceh, it was double-wrapped in plastic before being dumped at designated disposal sites.

But measures to dispose of the material safely were also compromised. Guardian Australia has been told local people ripped open the packages and took the plastic to resell. The material was later wrapped in plastic again and quickly buried.

Further complicating the remediation process, GHD also oversaw the renovation of buildings that contained asbestos from earlier times.

In those cases GHD removed only the material it was directly responsible for installing, replacing it with an asbestos-free product at a cost to the company of $3m. To remove all the old asbestos, Guardian Australia was told, would have been like opening up a "Pandora's box".

In September 2008 AusAid provided $5m for an asset mapping assistance project (Amap) to assess construction since the tsunami and determine how widely asbestos had been used.

A report of that project in November 2009 noted the need to document and manage the use of hazardous building materials (HBM) across Aceh province, especially in Aceh Jaya, "where major HBM problems exist".

But the Amap report noted that mapping of hazardous building materials, including asbestos, had been "limited".

Guardian Australia understands that when asbestos was identified in the AusAid-funded building, GHD expressed concern that asbestos might also be present in many other buildings.

However Hanief Arie, a former deputy of the Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) said there was only one case of asbestos in Aceh, involving a foundation that built houses. That foundation was asked to remove the hazardous material.

The Indonesian government declined to comment on why the use of asbestos was never comprehensively mapped in Aceh, in contravention of the objectives of Amap.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/24/boxing-day-tsunami-asbestos-used-in-rebuilding-effort-funded-by-ausaid

Sexual & domestic violence

Indonesian cleaners found guilty of raping children at Jakarta school

Sydney Morning Herald - December 22, 2014

Michael Bachelard – The five Indonesian janitors accused of raping three pre-school children at the Jakarta Intercultural School have been found guilty and sentenced to seven and eight year prison sentences.

The findings will shock and frighten supporters of two teachers, Neil Bantleman and Ferdinant Tjiong, who are accused in a separate but related case of raping the same three children at the school.

The lawyer for two of the cleaners, Patra Zen, said outside the court he would appeal immediately. He said the judges had made their decision based on the testimony of a six-year-old boy, the evidence of the police, and one doctor. The court was closed to observers.

But Mr Patra said there was no hard evidence of rape, and the doctor had only said the medical evidence "doesn't rule out the possibility that what the child said is true".

"So the judgment is based on a possibility only," Mr Patra said. "Justice is not served".

The lawyer for another defendant, Muhammad Boli, also said he would appeal. He said the verdict appeared to be bad news for the two teachers.

"I think so because the pattern is the same in both cases: it's about sodomy and there is no witness. The judges' ruling is based on the police interrogation only and the testimony of experts was ignored, " Boli said.

Four of the cleaners Virgiawan Amin, Agun Iskandar, Zainal Abidin and Syahrial – initially confessed to the rapes, and, in their statements, some of them implicated a woman cleaner, Afrischa Setyani, who never confessed.

On the first day of their trial, the other four recanted, saying their confessions had been made under police torture. But on the first day of their trial they said their confessions had been made under police torture. All were sentenced on Monday to eight years in prison.

In their initial statements, some of them implicated a woman cleaner, Afrischa Setyani, who never confessed. She was sentenced on Monday to seven years.

A sixth cleaner, Azwar, died under questioning in the police cells. The police say that he drank bleach out of shame during a break in interrogation and died, but his family say he died under tortured.

Photographs of Azwar's corpse shortly after his death appear to show a cut on his lip and a bruised face. Mr Patra said on Monday he wants an autopsy of Azwar conducted either by an independent doctor or a military doctor, and Mr Muhammad backed the call.

Afrischa was sentenced to seven years in prison and Virgiawan eight years.

The medical evidence in both the cleaners' and the teachers' cases is largely the same, though one extra doctor – a police doctor – has made a medical report against the teachers.

When asked if the verdict in Monday's case could affect the teachers' case, Mr Patra said it depended on the panel of judges. There are different judges in the two cases.

Mr Bantleman is a joint British-Canadian citizen and Mr Ferdinant is an Indonesian teachers' aide. The embassies, including Australia's which set up the prestigious school, are watching this case closely.

The case exploded in the media in Indonesia when the mother of one alleged victim presented medical evidence that she said showed that the boy had contracted sexually transmissable herpes.

But an expert witness in the case, John Baird from Oxford University, told the court, and later the Jakarta Globe newspaper, that there was no evidence of this. "The defendants are almost certainly falsely accused," he said.

The original family has also launched at $US125 million law suit against the school. Evidence in the teachers' case will be presented to the court on Tuesday.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/indonesian-cleaners-found-guilty-of-raping-children-at-jakarta-school-20141222-12cejl.html

Labour & migrant workers

Labor cases pile up in 2014: LBH Jakarta

Jakarta Post - December 27, 2014

Indra Budiari, Jakarta – The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) has highlighted weak labor protection in the country as it revealed that labor disputes were the cases most frequently submitted to the organization in 2014.

Based on LBH Jakarta's year-end report that was made available to The Jakarta Post, 209 of the 1,055 cases received by the organization in 2014 that occurred in greater Jakarta were related to labor disputes, most filed by marginalized citizens.

LBH Jakarta also reported that the legal aid organization had received 228 labor cases submitted by 54,883 people throughout the country in 2014.

Pratiwi Febry, LBH Jakarta public defender and research head, said Tuesday that it was not the first time that industrial relations disputes were the most widely handled cases by the LBH.

"Since the establishment of this organization, almost every year labor cases sit at the top of the chart and there is still no difference this year," Pratiwi told the Post at the LBH Jakarta office in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

She said most of the workers needed legal assistance when they became involved in an industrial relations dispute with their employers because they would have very little chance of winning a legal battle if the case went to court.

Pratiwi said that when the disputes escalated to trial, the companies, which possessed all the supporting data, would most likely not share it with their workers.

"Not to mention all the expenses workers would face during a trial, while companies can hire expensive lawyers. It is not a fair battle, that is why many of them decide to come to us," she said.

LBH data indicates that in 2014 it handled 3,054 clients in 33 labor disputes at the Industrial Relations Court, while the rest were still in the advisory phase.

Dadang Tri Sasongko, secretary-general of Transparency International Indonesia (TII), said that workers were also prone to becoming victims of the country's corrupt justice system.

He added that based on research released by the TII, the corruption index for the judicial system was still very low and it did not have the ability to protect the human rights of marginalized people. "In many labor cases, the workers became victims in two places, their workplace and the court," Dadang said.

Pratiwi said further there were still cultural misconceptions in the city that pictured workers as unskilled people always complaining about their conditions.

"For example, there are a lot of protests from the public when workers stage rallies in the city, while in fact many of them have not been paid by their employers," she said.

The year-end report also showed that LBH handled 12 eviction cases that were submitted by 825 people in 2014. Pratiwi emphasized that evictions were highly prone to human rights violations because most of the squatters had no prior notification nor suitable compensation from the city administration.

"Sometimes evictions are inevitable, but we want to make sure that the administration does not violate people's rights in the process," she said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/27/labor-cases-pile-2014-lbh-jakarta.html

Exodus of illegal Indonesian migrant workers begins

Jakarta Globe - December 23, 2014

Dyah Ayu Pitaloka & Edi Hardum, Surabaya – More than 2,000 illegal and undocumented Indonesian workers who found themselves stranded in Malaysia are scheduled to be repatriated this week, as a deadline given by the Malaysian government approaches.

On Tuesday, "497 Indonesian workers are coming home from Malaysia. [On Wednesday] there will be 734," said Indonesia's minister for social affairs, Khofifah Indar Parawansa. "This week, there will be a total of 2,015 [workers from Malaysia repatriated]."

The government has pledged to bring back some 1.8 million undocumented Indonesians working overseas, 1.2 million of whom are in Malaysia.

Malaysia has set Dec. 31 as the deadline for illegal foreign workers to leave the country, and its Home Ministry has proposed caning as punishment for agents found guilty of continuing to bring in labor from abroad through unofficial channels, as well as immigration agents caught aiding them.

There have been concerns that caning will also be carried out on the undocumented workers.

Reyna Usman, the director general for the Social Affairs Ministry's migrant worker allocation division, said on Tuesday that the repatriation would be conducted in two stages.

"Those who can be returned now are those who only had administrative problems. Migrant workers with legal problems should wait until their cases are resolved, then finish their administrative verification," he said. "They are now being held in immigration detainment centers."

The Indonesian nationals were detained for working without a permit, overstaying their visas or having committed other immigration violations. The first batch – flown in from Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang – arrived on Tuesday morning at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta.

Khofifah said the Indonesian Air Force had allocated five Hercules aircraft for the ongoing repatriation efforts and to take the workers back to their hometowns.

"All transportation costs and transits will be born by the Social Affairs Ministry, the BNP2TKI [Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers] and the ministry of manpower," Khofifah added.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/exodus-illegal-indonesian-migrant-workers-begins/

Freedom of speech & expression

Civil servant on trial for criticizing regent

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Makassar – A civil servant, identified as Fadhli Rahim, 33, has been detained and brought on trial for criticizing Gowa regent Ichsan Yasin through social media Line.

The staff of Gowa Tourism agency who has been detained in Makassar penitentiary since Dec. 24, reportedly accused the regent of receiving fees from investors through Line conversation group among his high school alumni on May 6.

On the first trial at the Sungguminasa District Court Gowa, last week, prosecutors charged the defendant with the Law 11/2008 on Information and Electronics Transaction, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in jail and a maximum fine of Rp 1 billion (US$8,000).

In the second trial on Wednesday, Fadhli's lawyers from the Makassar Legal Aid Institute rejected the charge, saying that it's against the 1945 State Constitution that guaranteed freedom of opinion and expressions.

Fadhli's mother Rukmini said she and her son asked for an apology for the regent who is also the younger brother of South Sulawesi Governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo.

The 53-year-old woman who is an English teacher at Sungguminasa State Senior High School, said she had to work at a high school in the suburb area that needed 3.5 hours to reach it. "I don't know why I was transferred. I have been teaching here for 29 years."

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/civil-servant-trial-criticizing-regent.html

'Senyap' screened at IAIN Gorontalo

Jakarta Post - December 24, 2014

Gorontalo – Banned in several places in Yogyakarta and other cities, the Senyap (Look of the Silence) film directed by filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer was screened on Monday night at the State Academy of Islamic Studies (IAIN) in Gorontalo.

Organized by IAIN's Sulampala Scout Movement, the film screening attracted dozens of spectators, including Miss Gorontalo Siti Nuzlan Rahman and student activists from the Association of Islamic Students (HMI) and the Indonesian Islamic Students Movement (PMII).

The Scout's chairman Wahyudin Alif Gobel admitted that he was once afraid that he would receive threats and intimidation due to the planned screening, which tells of the bloody tragedy in 1965 that claimed hundreds of thousands of supporters of the Indonesia Communist Party (PKI), as had happened in other cities.

"Thank God, after we explained the film and the need for the young generation to know their history, the campus allowed us to go ahead as planned," Wahyudin said.

The film screening was the second in the city as Gorontalo's Independent Journalists Alliance screened the film at its office on Dec. 11, which was attended by people from minority groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and members from Ahmadiyah Muslim groups.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/24/senyap-screened-iain-gorontalo.html

'Senyap' film screening canceled, again

Jakarta Post - December 22, 2014

Yogyakarta – A screening of Senyap (The Look of Silence) that was planned for Sunday at the Yogyakarta Institute of Technology campus was canceled due to the threat of an act of religious intolerance.

"The event was canceled as the hall was locked up and the key was taken by the dean [after learning about the threat]," said screening committee member Edi Suprihanto.

Earlier, a planned screening of the film directed by US filmmaker Joshua Openheimer at the Independent Journalists Alliance's Yogyakarta branch office was also canceled on Tuesday evening as the police could not guarantee the safety of the event due to the threats.

The film was screened the following day at state-run Gadjah Mada University, but the discussion following the film was dispersed by a group of people who entered the campus.

Commenting on the cancellations, the National Commission on Human Rights' head of monitoring, Dianto Bachriadi, regretted that the police had not protected people from threats made by intolerant groups.

"It's weird that the police gave up against the intolerant groups. If they cannot protect people, what is their function?" Dianto told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/22/senyap-film-screening-canceled-again.html

Political parties & elections

For Indonesian politics, new year well wishes will be short-lived

Jakarta Globe - December 31, 2014

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The first half of 2015 is forecasted to be a period of political uncertainties in Indonesia, with the administration of President Joko Widodo reeling from declining popularity after fuel price hikes and the political constellation in the House of Representatives leave it short of the support that swept it to power.

The Indonesian Survey Circle, or LSI, says Joko's popularity, even among those who voted for him in the July 9 presidential election, suffered a major downturn following the government's decision to raise prices of subsidized fuel by an average of 33.6 percent on Nov. 18.

The LSI, citing the result of its survey conducted shortly after the hikes, said only 45 percent of respondents were satisfied with the government's performance; 44 percent were dissatisfied, while the rest said they did not know or did not answer.

Of those who had cast their votes for Joko and running mate Jusuf Kalla during the election, only 49 percent said they were satisfied, while 42 percent were dissatisfied.

"This indicates that Jokowi's supporters have begun to abandon him after the fuel price increase," LSI said of the survey's findings, referring to the president by his nickname.

"Jokowi's administration hasn't even completed its first 100 days in office, yet the satisfaction level is already less than 50 percent. This is a warning to the Jokowi-J.K. administration," the LSI added in a press statement.

Joko had declared, before announcing the fuel price hikes, that he was ready to risk a loss of popularity as a consequence of diverting Indonesia's burgeoning fuel subsidy funds to other sectors that needed more money, including infrastructure development and social welfare.

Two weeks before the hikes, he launched the Indonesia Health Card, the Indonesia Smart Card and the Prosperous Family Card, as components of the social safety net to cushion the impact of the hikes on Indonesia's most vulnerable: low-income families.

But the LSI said the public doubted that the diverted funds would reach the targeted programs and people. "Rampant corrupt practices and poor bureaucratic culture are the source of their concerns," the pollster said.

The LSI added that most respondents said they had yet to feel any benefit from Joko's ascent to power, with only 27 percent saying they had.

Political analyst Aleksius Jemadu said it was too early for the public to expect to enjoy the outcome of the Joko administration, given that it had not even been in the job for three months. Joko and Kalla were sworn in on Oct. 20.

It will take some time, for instance, for the reallocated funds from the fuel subsidy cuts to reach the targeted programs, and for those programs to have any impact on the community, Aleksius said.

He added that Joko, whose election win was largely attributable to his populist public image, was currently facing real tests in the field where it was not easy to implement the pro-people policies he touted during the election campaign.

However, Aleksius, the dean of Pelita Harapan University's School of Social and Political Sciences, said Joko must stay true to the pro-people image he had built for himself, otherwise his popularity and credibility in the public's eyes would continue to decline.

Regarding the fuel subsidy cut, Aleksius said it was imperative for Joko to explain to the public exactly where the funds would be redirected.

"It must be made clear which ministries will get the diverted subsidy funds, how much each of them will receive, and what their respective plans are for those funds the next year, or in the next five years," he said.

Muhammad Qodari, the executive director of the polling institute Indo Barometer, said Joko must neglect popularity issues for a while, and instead ensure the diverted funds would quickly reach the intended targets.

"Speaking of popularity, it will depend on how quickly and how good the programs are that are being drafted to utilize the diverted subsidy funds," he said.

"The public trust will return after those programs manage to spur good economic growth, as well as tackle inflation and other impacts of the fuel price hikes."

Two or three months ago, analysts would readily have agree that the House would pose the biggest challenge to Joko's administration, given that it is dominated by the opposition Red-White Coalition, or KMP.

The KMP, which also controls the speaker's post and all four deputy speaker seats, has easily won vote after vote, such as the controversial regional elections law and law on legislative bodies.

Through votes, the KMP also managed to snatch all leadership posts in both the House and the People's Consultative Assembly, leaving none to parties in the pro-government Awesome Indonesia Coalition, or KIH – to the chagrin of the latter.

Analysts previously expressed concerns that hostile, aggressive maneuvering of KMP politicians in the House would give the government major obstacles in its enactment of policies that required approval from legislators.

Recent internal turmoil within member parties of the KMP, however, are making the political constellation in the House no longer clear, Qodari said.

He pointed to the case of the United Development Party (PPP) and the Golkar Party, two of the six original members of the opposition bloc, which have been afflicted by "serious" internal discord. The PPP jumped ship to the KIH in early October amid internal conflict which that has since led to a split dual leadership in the party.

In early December, Golkar was also split into two as rival factions within Indonesia's oldest, and second-biggest, party appointed their own executive boards; although this has not gone so far as to cause Golkar to officially switch sides and align with the KIH.

"It is no longer that simple now to map the political constellation in the House, with all the serious, severe internal dynamics of the party members [of the KMP]," Qodari told the Jakarta Globe.

"It used to be black and white. The KMP was the majority, the KIH was the minority. But Golkar and the PPP are divided now; there has been pushing and pulling involving different interests in those parties. And these new variables will determine the future relations between the government and the House," he said.

The conflicting interests can be traced back to events surrounding the July 9 presidential election, when some factions in four political parties in the KMP – including the Democratic Party and the National Mandate Party (PAN) – made repeated public statements that their parties were considering switching to the KIH to support Joko's presidency.

Aleksius said that with the Democrats and PAN scheduled to hold their respective national congresses in the first half of 2015, even their stance with the KMP was not final yet.

The chairman of the Democratic Party, former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, expressed his disappointment with the KMP in early December regarding its stance on direct elections of regional leaders.

Yudhoyono wanted the coalition to stay committed to restoring the direct vote mechanism after a walkout by Democrat legislators in September allowed the rest of the KMP to vote against direct elections; drawing public ire against Yudhoyono.

The congresses next year are expected to make a final decision on the two parties' stance – whether they will stick with the KMP or not through 2019, when Indonesia's next legislative and presidential elections will be held.

Despite the KMP's current rocky state, Qodari said he believed Joko as president still faced a tremendous challenge.

"He's conducting extraordinary political experiments. This had never happened in Indonesia's history before: a president who is not a chairman of a political party, who governs with the support of a minority, not a majority in the House," he said.

The LSI also said that Joko was "facing a threat in becoming the weakest president in Indonesia's history." Qodari said the key solution for Joko to survive the situation was to make sure he won the public's support.

Aleksius, meanwhile, said he believed the conflict in the House offered Joko a good chance to win back the public trust, despite criticism over the fuel price hikes. "Due to the internal party conflicts and the rivalry between the KIH and the KMP, the public's trust in the House is currently wavering," he said.

"So this is actually an opportunity for Jokowi's administration to win the public's support. The situation may reverse, though, if Jokowi fails to make use of this opportunity by showing the public real work and concrete outcomes," he added.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/indonesian-politics-new-year-well-wishes-will-short-lived/

Indonesia 2014: A political drama rife with discord

Jakarta Globe - December 30, 2014

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Events surrounding Indonesia's third direct presidential election in July have fueled internal conflicts within some parties, culminating in a schism now afflicting the country's two oldest political organizations: the United Development Party, or PPP, and the Golkar Party.

Internal party conflict is nothing new in Indonesian politics, especially since the beginning of the reform era when autocratic control over parties disappeared along with the collapse of the New Order regime, and after which new parties have continued to spring up.

Internal discords triggered by thirst for power, however, never looked so ugly as when parties are faced with opportunities to secure a place in a ruling government.

The country's oldest Islamic-based party, the PPP, saw its worst internal spat in the party's 41-year history after then chairman Suryadharma Ali attended a campaign event for the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party at Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta in March, approximately two weeks before the April 9 legislative elections. Suryadharma at that time insinuated his support for Gerindra founder Prabowo Subianto's presidential bid.

The move angered a faction within the PPP led by then secretary general M. Romahurmuzy and deputy chairman Emron Pangkapi, who accused Suryadharma of pledging the party's support without consulting members of the executive board.

Romahurmuzy's camp also claimed that Suryadharma's premature show of support for Prabowo hurt PPP members in regions where political competition against Gerindra candidates during legislative campaigns were particularly fierce.

Suryadharma responded to the attacks by dismissing Romahurmuzy and Emron from the executive board. The latter fired back by organizing a one-sided party meeting that agreed on the suspension of Suryadharma.

Interference by the party's chief patron and spiritual leader, Maimun Zubair, immediately led to a reconciliation between the two camps. And the PPP, after collecting only 6.5 percent vote during the legislative elections (the lowest score recorded by Islamic-leaning parties in the 2014 elections), agreed to join the Red-White Coalition, or KMP, to support the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa ticket in the July 9 presidential race.

In May, however, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named Suryadharma, who was also serving as Indonesia's religious affairs minister, as a suspect in a hajj fund graft case. This again spurred calls from inside the party for his resignation as chairman – pressures Suryadharma ignored.

Despite the internal turbulence, the PPP stood by the Red-White Coalition, even after Prabowo's dramatic loss in the presidential election to then Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo, a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Joko was nominated by a four-party bloc that later called itself the Awesome Indonesia Coalition, or KIH, led by the PDI-P.

Despite their loss, parties that formed the Red-White Coalition still controlled a majority of the seats that forms the House of Representatives, enabling the group to revise a law on legislative bodies that later allowed the opposition bloc to snatch all leadership posts in the House through votes – including the speaker position, a pivotal role that was previously automatically given to the winner of preceding legislative elections.

However, being the smallest party in the six-party camp, the PPP was denied a post in the speakership board, consisting only of one speaker and four deputies.

The PPP's anger mounted when the Red-White Coalition again excluded the party from nominations for the speakership board of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR). Romahurmuzy's faction had swiftly taken control of the PPP from Suryadharma, piloting the party as it jumped ship to the PDI-P's Awesome Indonesia Coalition in exchange for a spot as an MPR deputy speaker.

President Joko Widodo's camp lost to the Prabowo-led Red-White coalition in the early October vote at MPR. PPP, however, has since then stayed on with the pro-government coalition, earning it one post in the cabinet as Joko decided to extend the term of senior PPP politician Lukman Hakim Saifuddin as religious minister.

The internal rift afflicting PPP further widened when its two conflicting factions held separate party congresses in late October; one led to the election of Romahurmuzy as chairman and the other to the appointment of Djan Faridz, a loyalist of Suryadharma, for the party's top job.

The Justice and Human Rights Ministry, unsurprisingly, announced it would only recognize Romahurmuzy's PPP. Suryadharma's camp brought the case to the State Administrative Court (PTUN), a move followed by Romahurmuzy's faction. The dispute is still ongoing.

'Productive' Golkar

Golkar, the ruling party of the New Order regime, also suffered a rift as a result of conflicting interests surrounding the presidential election.

Although finishing second after the PDI-P in the April 9 legislative race, the party failed to garner enough votes to nominate its own chairman, tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, as its presidential candidate ahead of the July 9 contest.

Nor was he popular enough among political circles as neither the Red-White or the Awesome Indonesian Coalition were willing to choose him as a running mate of their respective presidential nominees.

Aburizal's first move after he reportedly gained full authority to steer his party in the direction he saw fit was meeting up with PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri in Jakarta to secure a leading role within the former president's camp ahead of the July 9 election.

Although no announcement was made that day, it was understood that the two leaders failed to come to terms, which prompted Aburizal to swiftly shift his focus to Prabowo's camp and, soon after, Golkar officially became part of the Red-White Coalition.

Ahead of election day and even after Joko's victory, contradicting statements reported from within the party suggested a rift had formed, separating the once dominating political vehicle into two glaringly obvious camps: one in support of Joko and the democratic change he represented; and the other backing Prabowo's New Order brand of authority.

Golkar, ever since its first election win in 1973, had always been part of the ruling government. Because of this, many analysts initially predicted that the party founded by late dictator Suharto would eventually switch sides to the pro-government coalition.

This, however, never happened. And the possibility for that has been sealed with Joko's announcement of his Golkar-free cabinet lineup in late October.

The faction within Golkar that sought to align with the government blamed Aburizal for the fate the party now suffered, leading to the election of Agung Laksono, a former deputy of Aburizal, as its new chairman. Agung's camp, which calls itself the Presidium of Golkar Saviors, held their own election in early December, mere days after a congress dominated by Aburizal's faction saw him re-elected as the party chairman for a second term.

Both factions have registered themselves with the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, which told them to first settle their internal disputes. Most recently, each camp has appointed their own negotiators to pave the way for a reconciliation.

Some observers have speculated that the Awesome Indonesia Coalition's meddling in the internal affairs of the opposition would eventually weaken the Red-White Coalition and its aggressive maneuvering in the parliament.

However, political analyst Siti Zuhro of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) pointed out that internal rifts were not new to Golkar. In fact, similar conflicts following the fall of Suharto had led to the birth of many new political parties, most notably Gerindra, the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and the National Democratic Party (NasDem).

Founders of these – former Army general Prabowo, former Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Wiranto and media mogul Surya Paloh, respectively – were all senior politicians with Golkar before disagreements prompted them to leave and establish their own parties.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/indonesia-2014-political-drama-rife-discord/

The election year: Public steps up participation in voting process

Jakarta Post - December 29, 2014

Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – The year 2014 was a milestone in Indonesia's young democracy, the country successfully holding one of the largest elections in the world.

The 2014 general election consisted of a legislative election on April 9 and a presidential election on July 9.

The legislative election involved four million officers stationed in 550,000 polling stations throughout the country's vast archipelago, having to deal with 700 million ballot papers and 190 million eligible voters.

In terms of voters, an Indonesian general election is the second largest single-day election in the world after the United States.

But what made this year's election stand out from past elections was the surge in public participation. Not only did voters cast their ballot, they also guided the ballot count until the final process.

"I see the strengthening of political discourse among voters and their quality amid the necessity to continue improving the electoral system and institutions," Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) executive director Titi Anggraini told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

She said that the remarkable public participation was spurred by technological advancement, especially social media.

"The public initiated movements to choose better candidates, seriously probing their track records and so on. Therefore, public participation has begun to shift from formal, which means simply coming to polling stations to vote, to a more substantial form, which is political discourse," said Titi.

Other forms of public participation included public monitoring during the campaign period, voting and vote tally processes using technology, such as smartphone apps and social media, on top of the traditional method of reporting electoral fraud to the official election supervisory body, the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu).

Titi said that the public decided to step up to the plate after seeing the weaknesses in the election system, particularly the lack of supervision and law enforcement to prevent fraud.

"The enthusiasm of the public to report fraud was not matched by the way Bawaslu handled the reports. For example, until now Bawaslu has not released official data on the amount of reports they received or the status of those reports," said she.

The use of technology was not exclusive to the public as it was also increasingly used by election organizers, particularly the General Elections Commission (KPU).

"The use of technology really increased, particularly at the level of election organizers. But if we're talking about Bawaslu, then they're not really utilizing technology. This is a challenge for the future," Titi said.

She cited the example of the scanning of recapitulation documents, known as C1 forms, that were uploaded to the KPU website. The scanning was meant to increase transparency, with anyone able to access the scanned documents for any purpose.

Citizens were eager to take the opportunities provided by this innovation, counting the votes tallied on each document and pointing out any irregularities on social media like Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, especially during the presidential election. "This innovation is simple but triggers participation," said Titi.

She added that the participation of ordinary citizens in the vote-counting process was crucial since the tabulation process, conducted in stages from subdistrict level to national level, was vulnerable to manipulation.

"The vote tally process was the most frequent victim of fraud, not the voting itself," Titi said. "The process was plagued by vote-trading and it was also marred by the glacial speed of the recapitulation process at the national level by the KPU."

One day before it was supposed to finish the tally of votes in the legislative election on May 9, the KPUhad yet to count the votes in seven provinces out of 33. The KPU finally managed to finish the recapitulation right before midnight, sparing it from any sanctions.

"Many people said that this year's general election was the most brutal in terms of vote-buying. But we can't truly compare it to 2009 because there are instruments now that didn't exist in 2009, such as social media, which makes it easier for people to detect fraud and discuss it," said Titi.

However, the competition among legislative candidates and presidential hopefuls also resulted in intensifying electoral fraud.

"The political competition got more intense between political parties and even among members of the same party because of the open proportional system [in the legislative election]," Titi said.

The open-list proportional system gave candidates more time to prepare their strategies, whereas in 2009 the government used a closed-list proportional system that gave political parties the authority to decide which candidates would sit in the legislature.

The system also resulted in losing candidates flocking to the Constitutional Court to contest the result of the elections.

This year, the number of legislative election disputes filed at the court rose to 902 from 601 in 2009. "The number increased because this year the court also handled internal conflicts," Titi said.

In the 2009 election, most plaintiffs were contesting results against opposing parties. Most of the disputes centered on alleged violations concerning ballot counts and vote-buying.

The 2014 general election marked the last time Indonesia had separate legislative and presidential elections, with the country poised to hold both elections on the same day in 2019.

The government and election organizers are also considering moving toward an electronic voting system (e-voting) in 2019.

Both the Home Affairs Ministry and the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) have said that electronic-based elections (e-elections) were feasible and that they could begin as soon as next year for the concurrent regional elections.

KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik, however, said that the election organizer was not ready to implement the system next year.

But he did not brush off the use of technology for the 2015 regional elections, revealing that the KPU was planning to implement an electronic recapitulation system (e-recap) next year.

"The most simple one right now is e-recap, which uses recapitulation forms, commonly known as C1 forms, and we have already have the experience of publishing those forms from 98 percent of polling stations in the country [during the 2014 presidential election]," he said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/29/the-election-year-public-steps-participation-voting-process.html

Golkar deadlock over internal committee

Jakarta Post - December 29, 2014

Jakarta – Senior Golkar Party politician Muladi expressed pessimism on the possibility of ending the dispute between the two Golkar factions through the party's internal dispute committee.

As the head of the committee, according to the 2009 national congress in Riau, Muladi said his team could not go to work even with the recognition of the government and the two conflicting factions; one led by Aburizal Bakrie, elected in a congress in Bali, and the other by Agung Laksono, elected in a congress in Jakarta.

"We cannot hold a hearing because we don't have independence," he said, as quoted by Viva.or.id.

Muladi said two of the five committee members, Djasri Marin and Andi Mattalatta, were already with Agung's faction. Muladi, who is currently with Aburizal's faction, said he and another member, Has Natabaya, also from Aburizal's faction, were the only ones available to hold a hearing.

Another member of the committee, Aulia A. Rachman, is currently serving as the Indonesian ambassador to the Czech Republic.

For the first time in its 50-year history, the party has split, seriously disrupting its political activities.

Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly had announced that reconciliation between the two factions should be through the party's dispute committee, as appointed in the Riau congress.

Muladi said he had sent letters to the two factions, elaborating three options for the reconciliation: negotiations, a joint national congress, or legal settlement by the Administrative Court.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/29/golkar-deadlock-over-internal-committee.html

Government considers pushing elections to 2016

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – Voters who anticipated casting ballots in local elections in seven provinces and 181 regencies and municipalities in 2015 will likely have to wait longer before they can exercise their right, at least until 2016 when a system is finally expected to be in place.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) has said that the simultaneous direct elections could be pushed back to 2016, as long as there was an agreement between the government and the House of Representatives.

"For such a postponement, there are needs to be intensive discussion between the Home Ministry and the House," KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik said on Tuesday.

The discussion would be needed to work out some details if the House endorses the government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) on regional elections. Following the endorsement, the ministry could immediately prepare a regulation that would make the schedule change official.

The Home Ministry's director general of regional autonomy, Djohermansyah Djohan, recently said that it was possible for the simultaneous local election to take place in 2016 if the KPU was behind schedule in making preparation for the balloting process.

Under the current arrangement, the simultaneous local elections are scheduled to kick off on Dec. 16, 2015. However, calls have been mounting for the schedule of the elections to be pushed back to 2016.

"Holding the simultaneous elections in December 2015 will be too risky because the time to plan and prepare for the elections is too short, less than one year," Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) executive director Titi Anggraini said on Tuesday.

Ideally, any election organizer should have at least two years to prepare for the balloting, Titi said.

"Not to mention that these simultaneous elections will be the first of their kind [in this country]. Compared to legislative elections and presidential elections, regional elections are more likely to create violence and conflicts. That's why the schedule needs to be pushed back at least six month to June 2016," said Titi.

Other than giving the KPU more time to prepare for the balloting, holding the elections in 2016 would create an ideal election cycle, she added.

And as the next presidential election and legislative elections would be also be held simultaneously in 2019, Titi said that the second simultaneous regional elections should be held two years after, in 2021.

"Two years is long enough so that voters would not be too jaded with politics and that would make the turnout higher. It is also enough time for political parties to consolidate themselves so that they can nominate good candidates, as well as for the election organizers to prepare for it," she said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/govt-considers-pushing-elections-2016.html

Media & journalism

Attacks against journos on the rise

Jakarta Post - December 29, 2014

Hans Nicholas Jong – Violence against journalists is on the rise thanks to the way the police handle journalists in the country, a year-end report from the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) says.

The report, released on Tuesday, showed how the severity of violence against journalists increased throughout the year, even though the frequency remained the same as last year.

"Throughout 2014, there were 40 case of violence and 2013 also had 40 cases. But the cases were much more severe because we saw extraordinary violence [this year]," AJI chairman Suwarjono told a press conference at the association's headquarters in Kwitang, Central Jakarta.

He singled out the police among perpetrators of violence against journalists in the country. From 40 cases, six were committed by the police. Civilians, however, committed more violence, with eight cases.

"The worst case was in Makassar, South Sulawesi, where 10 journalists were assaulted, threatened and intimidated [by the police]. In the end, four journalists reported the case to the police but so far there have not been any serious measures taken [by the police]," said Suwarjono.

The violence happened during a student rally at Makassar State University (UNM) on Nov. 13, when journalists were covering a police attack on students.

The police felt provoked by the journalists and assaulted them, seizing camera memory cards from journalists covering the incident. Makassar MetroTV correspondent Vincent Waldy, for example, suffered injuries after being hit by a police officer with a shield.

"AJI Indonesia would like to point out how bad the police's performance was in 2014. The worst thing is, not a single case of violence committed by the police has been brought to court using the press law, while other law enforcers, such as the military, have been brought to court," Suwarjono said.

He said that the association urged the police to bring these cases to court to provide a deterrent in the future. "If the perpetrators are only tried on ethic codes' violations, then these cases will keep going on and on," said Suwarjono.

Other cases of police violence against journalists also took place in Surabaya, Jayapura, Medan and Jakarta.

AJI Indonesia also criticized the police's handling of blasphemy in the media reported by the public.

"Reports from the public related to the media that should have been handled by the Indonesia Press Council are being handled by the police using the blasphemy law and the Criminal Code [KUHP]," Suwarjono said, citing The Jakarta Post as an example.

Earlier this month, the Jakarta Police decided to name the Post's editor-in-chief, Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, as a suspect for publishing a syndicated caricature criticizing the Islamic State (IS) movement.

The council had already said that naming a suspect was unnecessary as it was within the domain of journalism.

"This case is pretty serious because if it is being followed up by the police, it will suppress the press freedom that we have long been fighting for and will set a bad precedent for all media in Indonesia," said Suwarjono.

He also lamented how the police had failed to solve the murder of journalists in the country.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/29/attacks-against-journos-rise.html

Environment & natural disasters

Government to mend peatland ruling amid protests

Jakarta Post - December 31, 2014

Tama Salim, Jakarta – The government will revise the government's newly issued regulation on the protection and management of peatland amid growing protests from the business community, which said that the new ruling hurt plantation activities.

Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar has confirmed that the state will revise Government Regulation No. 71/2014 on the protection and management of peatland, which would be implemented in May 2015 to replace the outdated Law No. 31/2009 on environmental protection and conservation.

Siti said that the government would consider the demands of the business community, which heavily criticized the rule for being unaccommodating to most commercial interests.

The regulation stipulates that the minimum water level in peatland must be maintained at 40 centimeters. Water levels in the country's 1.7 million peatlands are mostly below the required level to grow oil palm and eucalyptus trees. Therefore, most peatland areas accommodating oil palm plantations will have to be rehabilitated, according to the Indonesian Palm Oil Producer Association (Gapki) and Pulp and Paper Producers Association (APKI).

"Peatland is a definite source of water and it has already shrunk from 7 million hectares to 5 million ha. We just want to conserve what's available, so let's see if we can modify the provision," she said, without elaborating on any possible solutions.

With regard to land use in peatland areas, Siti said that the government would guarantee the continuity of current commercial permits, but refused to issue any new ones. She said that priority would be given to companies that have fulfilled the necessary environmental sustainability requirements and have already been utilizing peatlands for plantations.

"We're looking into this not only because it affects the wood-based industries but also because it affects the oil palm industry. We don't want any of these companies to close because of the new regulation," Siti explained.

When contacted separately, pulp and paper businessman Rusli Tan said that he welcomed the government's decision to evaluate the Peatland Regulation, since the regulation brought more harm than good.

According to Rusli, who was also APKI's deputy chairman, the regulation poses a threat to industrial forests owned by the pulp and paper industry. "The government should be protecting local businesses, not shutting them down," he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Rusli said that the government might experience the greatest impact, since these corporations not only invested heavily in capital but also provided employment for the surrounding community.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/31/govt-mend-peatland-ruling-amid-protests.html

As Indonesia's forests burned, no end in sight to infernos

Jakarta Globe - December 30, 2014

Kennial Caroline Laia, Jakarta – Slash-and-burn clearing of forests to make way for plantations topped Indonesia's list of environmental problems in 2014, with several major forest and land fires in Sumatra once again undermining the country's fight against deforestation, while generating choking clouds of smoke that left local residents ill and prompt the ire of neighboring countries.

The Indonesian office of international environmental group Greenpeace says the number of fire incidents over the past few years have continued to increase in Riau, a Sumatran province at the center of major forest and land fire incidents in Indonesia in recent years.

Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Muhammad Teguh Surya says a total of 6,644 fire hot spots were detected across Riau in 2011, and this figure has continued to rise: 8,107 hot spots in 2012 and 15,112 hot spots in 2013.

"As of October this year, we recorded more than 21,000 fire hot spots," Teguh told Indonesian news portal Tempo.co earlier this month.

The Riau administration declared a state of emergency in the province in late February after it failed to tackle fires and haze that spread to surrounding provinces, forcing airports to shut down and disrupting flights, as well as threatening the health of residents.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency, or BNPB, said during the emergency period that ran from Feb. 26 to April 4 that potential economic losses from the fires and haze were estimated at Rp 20 trillion ($1.61 billion). Nearly 22,000 hectares of land were torched, including 2,400 hectares located in biosphere reserves.

Nearly 6 million people were exposed to the haze, and 58,000 people suffered respiratory problems as a result.

Riau was forced to declare another state of emergency in July. Although local firefighters, with the help of the military and police, eventually managed to extinguish most of the fires, they kept coming back throughout the year.

BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho has highlighted the need for better law enforcement. In the wake of the peak of the fire and haze incidents in the first quarter of the year, police have arrested dozens of people for allegedly starting the blazes, but law enforcement in the sector has generally been considered toothless, with security officers criticized for only nabbing small-scale farmers and barely going after the large plantation companies in whose concessions many of the hot spots are located.

"The key is law enforcement. Peatlands burn easily, and once they burn, it's difficult to extinguish the fire. Prevention is more effective than putting out the fires," Sutopo said.

Environmentalists have attributed most of the haze cases to the clearing of peatlands to make way for plantations, especially for oil palms.

Local farmers and big plantation companies been blame each other for starting the fires, but President Joko Widodo, during a visit to Riau last month, won activists' praises when he threw his weight behind the smallholders.

"The best thing to do is to give the land to people so they can use it to plant sago. What's made by people is usually environmentally friendly. They won't do any harm to nature," he said. "However, if we give the land to corporations, they will only switch it to monoculture plantations."

Joko's predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, won plaudits from the international community for parading as an environmental champion – pledging Indonesia's commitment to cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2020 using its own resources, and by 41 percent with international support.

He enacted a moratorium on deforestation in 2011 to achieve those goals, and the ban will be in place until next year. Yudhoyono's administration, however, came under fire after Nature Climate Change journal published in June a report of a study that found Indonesia had overtaken Brazil as the world's biggest carbon dioxide emitter by deforestation, despite the much- ballyhooed moratorium.

The report said Indonesia's primary forest loss totaled more than six million hectares from 2000 to 2012, with an average increase of 47,600 hectares per year.

"By 2012, annual primary forest loss in Indonesia was estimated to be higher than in Brazil; 0.84 million hectares and 0.46 million hectares, respectively," it added.

Zenzi Suhaidi, a campaigner manager with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, or Walhi, criticized a presidential regulation on peatland protection issued by Yudhoyono earlier this year because it changed the status of Benoa Bay in the south of Bali from a conservation area into a so-called buffer zone.

The change in status allows a controversial commercial development project in the area to proceed, despite an outcry from local fishermen and environmental activists.

"In spite of its name, the regulation jeopardizes the sustainability of peatlands because it compromises certain stakeholders' interests, and the regulation provides no deterrent effects," Zenzi said.

He also pointed to a clause in the regulation that rules on environmental restoration requirements for forestry and mining firms, saying it offered a lot of room for backroom deals.

"That was a setback by Yudhoyono this year. The regulation 'inadvertently' provides room for gratuities," Zenzi said. "This year we've seen the effects of forest destruction, yet the previous administration still issued that regulation to exploit [forests]."

Zenzi, though, like other environmental activists, is encouraged by Joko's take on green issues, following his visit to Sungai Tohor village in Riau's Meranti Islands district in late November.

They believe the president's siding with local farmers and his particular attention to the management of peatlands are positive signs of his commitment to the environment. Joko, during that visit, introduced a canal system to manage the water level in peatlands to make them more resistant to fires. He said he wanted the system to be part of the government's permanent policies on Indonesia's peatland management.

Joko also has ordered reviews of logging permits and concessions of plantation and mining firms, in an effort to crack down on slash-and-burn clearing of forests.

"Those commitments may be part of a concrete agenda that will have significant effects. And implementations of all of them must start in 2015," Zenzi said.

He said the government must set up a body to ensure implementation of those commitments, suggesting a name like "the Anti-Forestry Mafia Committee," or "the Agrarian Conflict Resolution Board."

"Mechanisms [for resolutions] have to be built because the number of cases of [land] conflict and environmental degradation are very high already, and the incidents are widespread," Zenzi said.

He added Joko's administration also faced a challenge in the form of regulations issued during Yudhoyono's term.

"Although Joko's administration has signaled its good intentions to fix our country's environmental problems, we cannot forget that there are many policies on the environment arbitrarily issued by the previous administration," he said.

Rasio Ridho Sani, a deputy to the environment and forestry minister, however, argued that Indonesia had made significant improvements in the environmental sector, citing growing environmental awareness among logging, plantation and mining firms operating in forests.

He said 70 percent of the total 1,908 companies under the ministry's supervision were committed to complying with the government's environmental standards. The figure is an increase from 49 percent in 2004.

"Seventy percent of those corporations have refined their commitments to managing their activities and the effects toward the environment," Rasio said.

"This means the environmental awareness of the business community has increased. And we hope that the number will stay that high and increase even further," he said.

He added that the public's awareness about environmental issues was also improving, citing how more people were starting to cycle to work and were committed to recycling their waste as part of a greener lifestyle. "This is a very good sign for our nation," Rasio said.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/indonesias-forests-burned-end-sight-infernos/

Mud engulfs houses of Lapindo victims

Jakarta Post - December 27, 2014

Sidoarjo – Dozens of houses of the victims of the Lapindo mudflow in Gempolsari subdistrict, Tanggulangin district, Sidoarjo, East Java, have been inundated with mud following damage to the location's mud-reservoir embankment at point 73 and surroundings areas in last few days.

Sidoarjo Mudflow Mitigation Agency (BPLS) spokesperson Dwinanto P said that the damaged embankment was located not far from people's homes, accounting for why the mud engulfed their houses.

"The supporting embankment was damaged because of heavy downpours over the region," Dwinanto said, adding that his agency was trying to improve the embankment to prevent more mud from overflowing.

A number of pieces of heavy equipment belonging to the agency, he said, had been deployed on the eastern side of the overflowing mud to redirect it to the Ketapang River, which is located to the north of the damaged embankment.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/27/mud-engulfs-houses-lapindo-victims.html

Health & education

National exams no longer to determine graduation

Jakarta Post - December 30, 2014

Jakarta – In another landmark reform for the country's educational system, Culture and Primary and Secondary Education Minister Anies Baswedan announced on Monday that the ministry would end the function of national exams as the sole determining factor of student graduation.

The government will look for a better exam for 2015; it will still be a metric of educational quality in the region but it will no longer burden students in the way that the previous exam did for the past 10 years.

Anies said there were eight factors that were used to qualify the success of the educational system, all of which had been outlined by the ministry and which included the exams, teachers, learning materials and school infrastructure.

"We have been emphasizing [student] evaluations as parameters of success, while neglecting other factors," Anies told reporters after attending a meeting with the heads of educational agencies in Jakarta on Monday. One possible alternative is that a student's graduation will be determined by their individual schools.

Previously, in order to pass the national exam, secondary students had to score at least a 4 in every subject and had to have an average score (that factored in the national exam, school exams and reports) that was no lower than 5.5.

High school students who failed the national exam had to take another test the following year or an equivalent test and receive a different kind of diploma than their peers.

The equivalency test was usually taken by anyone who had dropped out of school but later wanted to obtain a degree that was equivalent to a high school diploma. Many students reportedly experienced depression while others allegedly cheated on the exam with their friends and teachers.

Anies, however, did not elaborate on how the new mechanism could be effective, saying that the ministry was still working on the new concept.

Nizam, the head of the ministry's Educational Evaluation Center (Puspendik), confirmed that the exam policy would be changed. "Yes, we will make [several adjustments]," he said, adding that the ministry would issue official information on how the new scheme would be carried out in 2015.

In 2006, it was reported that a group of teachers filed a lawsuit at the Central Jakarta District Court demanding the abolition of the national exams. The court granted the request and the government appealed the verdict.

In 2009, the Supreme Court rejected the government's appeal, saying that the examinations could only be held if their implementation was improved. Yet the ministry has carried on with the exams with several adjustments to the system, but retained its penalizing function that determined a student's graduation.

Another adjustment to the exams that is currently being considered is whether or not the exams should be done online in 2015.

However, only a few provinces and districts have been prepared for a trial. "Not all educational offices are ready for the trial due to a lack of computer and Internet facilities, but we will carry out the trial in the provinces or districts that are ready," Anies said.

Anies promised that the concept of the new version of the national exams would be implemented perfectly. (wit)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/30/national-exams-no-longer-determine-graduation.html

KPK unveils leakage in education budget

Jakarta Post - December 22, 2014

Haeril Halim, Jakarta – An investigation led by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in 20 regencies and cities has found that the management of the country's 2014 Rp 368 trillion (US$29.4 billion) education budget is marred with irregularities that may lead to corruption.

The government allocated professional allowance totaling Rp 58.2 trillion for 965,758 certified teachers at both private and state schools in 2014. The KPK found that officials at regional education agencies collected illegal payments of up to Rp 300,000 per teacher when disbursing their Rp 3 million allowance every three months.

The Rp 5.8 trillion excludes trillions of rupiah the government allocated for the same program for hundreds of thousands of certified teachers who are stationed at religion-based schools managed by the graft-ridden Religious Affairs Ministry.

"Teachers have lost up to Rp 1 trillion every year due to such practices. This is a bad example in our education sector. This finding should serve as a lesson for related institutions to improve next year's disbursement of teachers' professional allowance," KPK Chairman Abraham Samad told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

As the government is set to allocate up to Rp 80 trillion for the same program next year, Abraham said the KPK had handed over its findings to the Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry and other related institutions to improve budget disbursement prudence next year.

"In the 20 regencies and cities we surveyed, we collected evidence of the illegal levies. We found money at the offices of officials at regional education agencies," KPK spokesman Priharsa Nugraha said. Illegal levies were also found to have been pocketed in the School Operational Assistance (BOS) program.

The KPK said many state schools were collecting illegal payments from parents who paid the levies over fears that their children's BOS funds would be canceled by the schools if they failed to do so.

"We also found that many principals used BOS funds to pay for their personal expenses. Principles have full control over the disbursement of BOS funds, which is against the law. The BOS funds are also used to fund the school visits of superintendents from local education agencies. To cover up all the irregularities, officials at schools made fake reports," Priharsa said.

The government disburses Rp 580,000 per year for each elementary school student, Rp 710,000 for junior high school students and Rp 1 million for high school students.

The KPK has also found irregularities plaguing the scholarships for poor students (BSM) program, which disburses Rp 450,000 per year for each elementary school student, Rp 750,000 for junior high school students and Rp 1 million for high school students.

Commenting on the KPK's investigation, Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Anies Baswedan said his office would follow up on the findings.

"The findings are very detailed. We have to follow up on them. If we don't have a comprehensive strategy to manage our education fund, then our educational goals will not be achieved," Anies said in a statement.

Religious Affairs Ministry inspector general M. Jasin said that his office, along with the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP), had also conducted an investigation into the professional allowance program for teachers registered at the ministry.

"The audit found that many teachers on the list are not eligible to receive the funds. We excluded them right away from the list. We were supposed to pay Rp 4.3 trillion, but thanks to the audit we only had to pay around Rp 1.9 trillion," Jasin told the Post on Sunday.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/22/kpk-unveils-leakage-education-budget.html

Graft & corruption

KPK slammed for lack of action in high-profile graft cases

Jakarta Post - December 31, 2014

Haeril Halim, Jakarta – Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) lambasted the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Monday for failing to step up its investigations into several high-profile graft cases that the NGO said had made no progress this year.

"From our data, 11 cases did not progress this year. The KPK should prosecute more perpetrators in those cases," ICW researcher Emerson Yuntho said on Monday.

Emerson said the KPK this year failed to summon two suspects to complete their dossiers. One of them is a former director at state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina, Suroso Atmomartoyo, implicated in a bribery case surrounding the alleged rigging of a contract to purchase a fuel additive called tetraethyl lead (TEL) from Innospec, a UK-based manufacturer of fuel additives.

"The KPK named two suspects in the case in 2011, but they remain free as of today," Emerson added.

In March 2010, Innospec appeared at Southwark Crown Court in England and pleaded guilty to bribing Indonesian officials in order to secure contracts for the supply of the chemical. The company was fined millions of pounds for the bribery of the officials.

According to the indictment, Suroso allegedly received Rp 2.7 billion (US$217,400) from the company. Suroso and former Pertamina vice president Mustiko Saleh allegedly traveled to Britain to play golf in 2005, funded by Innospec.

Emerson added that the antigraft body also failed to prosecute former forestry minister MS Kaban despite the fact that businessman Anggoro Widjojo's conviction in July had apparently revealed that the chairman of the Muslim-based Crescent Star Party (PBB) received bribes from Anggoro several times with regard to the procurement of an integrated radio communications system at the ministry.

Although Kaban was issued with a travel ban in February this year, the KPK has yet to charge him.

"Also in the Bank Century scandal, the KPK has so far only prosecuted former Bank Indonesia deputy governor Budi Mulya. The main actors in the case remain untouched," Emerson said referring to former president Boediono and other BI colleagues who were confirmed by the Jakarta Corruption Court to have colluded with Budi to provide bank Century with a Rp 6.7 trillion bailout in 2008 without going through the proper mechanisms.

According to the ICW, other cases that made no progress this year are the Hambalang, West Java, sports complex case, the construction projects for the athletes' village at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Palembang, South Sumatra, the procurement of trains from Japan at the Transportation Ministry and the driving-simulator procurement case at the National Police.

"With regard to the SEA Games graft case, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle politician IWK who is said to have received money from the project remains untouched," Emerson said.

Responding to the ICW's accusations, KPK chairman Abraham Samad denied the antigraft body had dropped the 11 graft cases, saying that all graft cases investigated by the KPK were progressing at different speeds due to the lack of human resources. "We have done a great job this year although we have limited human resources," Abraham said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/31/kpk-slammed-lack-action-high-profile-graft-cases.html

Minister knew of sentence cut for convicts

Jakarta Post - December 27, 2014

Jakarta – The Law and Human Rights Ministry's director general of penitentiaries, Handoyo Sudrajat, said that Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna was aware of the policy to give sentence cuts to 49 graft convicts. "He is aware of the process," Handoyo said, as quoted by tribunnews.com.

On Christmas Day, as part of an annual tradition, the ministry granted sentence cuts to more than 9,000 convicts, including 49 jailed for corruption.

Anti-graft watchdog groups have blasted the decision, saying that Yasonna had broken his own promise to not give sentence reductions to graft convicts.

Earlier this week, Yasonna said that he had turned down the sentence- reduction proposals filed by 150 graft convicts. Yasonna claimed that he had only approved sentence cuts for 9,000 convicts in general crimes.

Earlier in September, the ministry, which controls prisons across the country, had been slammed for its perceived leniency toward graft convicts after it insisted on proceeding with the parole request of graft convict Anggodo Widjoyo, despite strong opposition from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/27/minister-knew-sentence-cut-convicts.html

Terrorism & religious extremism

Muslim organizations told to fight radicalism

Jakarta Post - December 27, 2014

Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has made an overture to the country's two largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, asking them to join his administration's efforts to combat terrorism and extremism in Indonesia, which is home to the world's largest Muslim population of almost 210 million out of a total population of more than 240 million people.

Jokowi said earlier, during an event attended by a number of Muslim scholars and rectors of state-run Islamic universities from around the country, that religious and cultural approaches were better tools for eradicating terrorism, rather than the adoption of a security approach.

Jokowi, however, did not elaborate on what he meant by a cultural approach, but said Indonesia's moderate Muslim organizations, including NU and Muhammadiyah, could set an example in a country that has long struggled with radicalism and terrorism.

Jokowi, who also said that the security approach that has been applied all over the world had failed to solve the problem of terrorism, added on Wednesday that after his meetings with leaders from NU and Muhammadiyah the government "needs [to hear] views from Muslim clerics" on the best ways to deal with radicalism.

NU chairman Said Aqil Siradj said the moderate Muslim organizations in the country, including NU, had drawn the line against radical groups, like the Islamic State (IS) movement.

"NU's stance is that we are against radicalism and extremism. [For NU] those are not the form of a fight [for Islam]. Let there be no more [IS and radicalism] supporters," Said Aqil said after the meeting with Jokowi.

Jokowi had also previously ordered Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno to take the necessary steps to prevent the IS movement from growing in Poso, Central Sulawesi.

Intelligence agencies had detected a growing IS presence in the mountainous district, which is already believed to be a terrorist hotbed.

Muhammadiyah deputy chairman Abdul Malik Fadjar said all Muslim organizations in the country should work together "to arrive at a unifying vision on what Islam really means". "The Religious Affairs Ministry also needs to have a greater role [in curbing radicalism]," Malik said.

Muhammadiyah cleric Najamuddin Ramly said that he could endorse Jokowi's soft approach on radicalism, saying that only religious and cultural approaches could address the core of the problem.

He also pointed out the important role that Muslim clerics could play in raising awareness about terrorism. He said that moderate clerics could speak in a language that radicals could understand.

In early December, some NU ulema agreed to engage in dialogues with radical groups to curb terrorism in the country, following a discussion with the National Intelligence Agency (BIN), the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry at an Islamic boarding school in Depok, West Java.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/27/muslim-organizations-told-fight-radicalism.html

Freedom of religion & worship

'Time of tolerance' may be coming to end in Indonesia

Jakarta Globe - December 29, 2014

Kennial Caroline Laia, Jakarta – The absence of major cases of violence stemming from religious intolerance in Indonesia this year by no means indicates that the issue has been resolved.

Observers noted that political euphoria during Indonesia's election year has diverted many sentiments of intolerance to the political arena, while poor law enforcement is still considered a main culprit behind lingering, if not growing intolerance.

Islamic scholar Azyumardi Azra said the condition of religious tolerance in Indonesia this year was better than last year in that there were no major cases as had been recorded in previous years.

"Overall, this year is much better than last year. Public tolerance has improved. There's no big case we should be alarmed of," Azyumardi told the Jakarta Globe last week.

The history professor from Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, however, scrutinized the intense use of religious sentiment during the elections, for both the legislative elections on April 9 and the presidential race on July 9.

"One thing that must be highlighted this year is the utilization of religion as political means during presidential campaigns," he said, referring especially to rampant smear campaign against candidate Joko Widodo, who has become Indonesia's seventh president.

Joko, a Javanese-born Muslim, was called a Chinese Christian, a missionary, a Zionist underling and a communist agent, among other things, in smear messages circulating freely via text messages, chat services and social media platforms among Indonesian voters.

Azyumardi said it was luck that although many voters might have been swayed by the smears, none were inspired to commit violence. "Fortunately, [the use] of religious sentiments appear to have had no significant effect on voters in that they didn't ignite violence," he said.

Muhammad Nurkhoiron, a commissioner with the National Commission on Human Rights, better known as Komnas HAM, said the election festivities rendered religious intolerance issues abandoned this year, resulting in no significant progress being made to address the problem.

"In 2014, no specific policy has been made to ensure better minority protection because of focus on the electoral process between April and July," Nurkhoiron said last week.

He called efforts to improve religious tolerance in Indonesia a "stagnant" process. "There are still rallies on minorities' places of worship, hate speeches in social media and even public demonstrations against a Chinese Christian government official."

He was referring to Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, formerly deputy governor to Joko, whose ascent to the top job in the capital was marked with rallies by hard-line groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) who objected to predominantly Muslim Jakarta being ruled by a Christian governor.

Among cases of religious intolerance that made media headlines in Indonesia this year are an FPI attack against members of the minority Islamic sect Ahmadiyah in Ciamis, West Java in June; the ban on hijab in a number of schools in predominantly Hindu Bali; and the attack on a house hosting a Catholic mass in Yogyakarta in May.

Nurkhoiron said radical mobs especially had been encouraged to keep launching attacks against the minority due to poor law enforcement. Even in the absence of a law specifically guaranteeing the right to religious freedom for minorities, any cases of violence and assaults should be considered crimes, in line with the Criminal Code.

"The police must protect the people, both from the minority and the majority. Sadly, the police often take side with the majority," he said.

Nurkhoiron added the intolerance and violence cases were often encouraged or aggravated by some regulations, as well as fatwas issued by local ulema, such as edits of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI.

Hard-line groups such as the FPI have based their violent protests against the Ahmadist on an edict issued by the MUI in 2005 that read: "Ahmadiyah isn't part of Islam. It is deviant and misleading. Therefore, people who adhere to the religion are infidels."

"An edict isn't a law product but is a social product created by and applied for certain communities. Should the edict violate the existing and official laws, it is the task of law enforcers to warn people [against the edict]," he said.

The Jakarta Globe attempted to contact MUI chairman Din Syamsuddin for comment, but he didn't return the Jakarta Globe's calls and text messages.

An outdated, but still often used decree issued by Indonesia's first president Sukarno in 1965 is another example of discriminatory regulations against Muslims who have different interpretations on Islam from the mainstream Muslim communities, Nukhorison added.

Despite the little progress, he said 2014 offered a ray of hope. "The religious minister this year has given a green light to support minority groups. We are waiting for [the realization]," Nurkhoiron says.

Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin last week said the ministry was drafting a bill on religious tolerance that would guarantee one's right to freedom of religion, including protection of minority religious groups.

Earlier in July, Lukman won praise from rights activists and minority groups as he said he recognized Baha'i as a faith, although he later clarified that it was his personal opinion, not a policy of the government.

Indonesia recognizes six official religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.

Haris Azhar, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), emphasized the need for real actions in the form of law enforcement against those who commit violence on behalf of religion.

"So far, there haven't been real actions made by the government to address intolerance cases in many areas in Indonesia. Although there has been statement from the minister, I'm afraid it could be no more than a saccharine promise," Haris said.

"The government often forgets that intolerance cannot be addressed by mere stack of papers consisting of regulations. No matter how many laws you propose, without firm actions by from law enforcers, there will still be groups that commit violence on behalf of religion."

He further added that the drafted bill would be useless if the government did nothing to revoke bylaws that were against the spirit of the bill.

Bylaws in several regions in Indonesia have been subject to rights activists' criticism because they are considered discriminatory, most notably in Aceh, the only province in Indonesia allowed to adopt the sharia bylaw following its history of secessionist rebellion.

Azyumardi added it was also imperative for the government to take proactive measures to prevent religious-based violence by bridging the gap between interfaith communities in Indonesia.

"We must consolidate our democracy locally. If not, people will get more fragmented and more violence are likely to happen," Azyumardi says.

Meanwhile, members of GKI Yasmin congregation in Bogor remained unable to hold a Christmas service inside their church on Thursday. This is the fifth year that they have been unable to hold Christmas service in the church since it was sealed by local authorities in 2010.

GKI Yasmin obtained a permit to open a church in Bogor in 2006, but the permit was later revoked by the municipal government following pressure from local hard-line Islamic groups.

A Supreme Court ruling later overruled the local authority decision, compelling the Bogor administration to reopen the church, but even the new Bogor mayor, Bima Arya Sugiarto, who was elected last year, has refused to comply.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/time-tolerance-may-coming-end-indonesia/

Kalla claims tolerance as Bogor threatens to demolish church

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Jakarta – Vice President Jusuf Kalla has declared Indonesia the most tolerant Muslim-majority country in the world, in a Christmas Day message that came as authorities in Bogor, south of Jakarta, threatened to tear down a church.

Kalla, speaking in Banda Aceh ahead of commemorations for the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, said on Thursday that Indonesia was largely free of conflict, allowing its people to "live harmoniously."

"In the Muslim-majority world, Indonesia is the most harmonious," he said as quoted by Republika Online. "There's no [conflict] here that compares with anything in any other country. We live together the most harmoniously," Kalla said.

His remarks on Thursday afternoon came just a few hours after the public order agency, or Satpol PP, aided by a mob, broke up a planned Christmas morning service by the beleaguered GKI Yasmin congregation in Bogor.

The congregation, which has been locked out of its church since April 2010, intended to hold its Christmas service on the sidewalk outside the church, as it has done for the past four years, but was heckled and taunted by a mob claiming to be local residents.

Bogor Satpol PP officers, who had been deployed to the church by municipal authorities from Wednesday night, sided with the mob and broke up the planned service, warning the congregation that the confrontation could escalate if they insisted on holding the service outside the church.

Outnumbered by both the mob and the Satpol PP officers, the congregation of mostly women was forced to abandon its plan and later held a joint Christmas service outside the State Palace in Central Jakarta with members of the HKBP Filadelfia church from Bekasi, which has also been locked out of its lawful church.

Eko Prabowo, the Satpol PP chief, told reporters that the city was considering tearing down the half-built GKI Yasmin church if it continued to be a source of "friction" between residents and the congregation. He claimed the city was not opposed to the presence of the church on religious grounds, but because the congregation did not have a building permit, or IMB, for it.

"This is an IMB problem, not a prohibition [on the congregation] practicing their faith," he said as quoted by Kompas.com. "So we can tear down this building."

The church did have an IMB, issued by the Bogor administration in 2006, but it was revoked in February 2010 following protests from hard-line Muslims who objected to having a church in their midst. In April that year, the city sealed off the church.

The congregation took the matter to the courts, and won rulings from both the West Java and Jakarta state administrative courts ordering the city to unseal the church and reinstate the IMB. Those rulings were backed up by a Supreme Court order in December 2010, but the Bogor administration has continued to flout the authority of the highest court in the land.

The central government has refused to force the Bogor administration to comply with the law, arguing that it has no power to do so under the principle of regional autonomy.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/kalla-claims-tolerance-bogor-threatens-demolish-church/

Christmas celebrated peacefully nationwide

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Bambang Muryanto and Suherjoko, Yogyakarta/Semarang – Christians across Indonesia celebrated Christmas on Thursday in different ways, although some could not conduct celebrations in their churches.

In Gunungkidul, Yogyakarta, some congregations conducted their Christmas services in subdistrict halls as their churches were sealed.

"We are concerned because there are still pressures from intolerant groups that we cannot hold our Christmas service in church," said Christiono Riyadi of the Gunungkidul Christian Church Cooperation Body, Thursday.

He said two churches, namely the Indonesian Evangelical Christian Church (GKII) in Balong subdistrict and the Indonesian Pentecost Church (GPI) in Semanu, had been sealed since May 2014 and since two years ago, respectively.

As a result, the 40 person congregation of GKII had to hold their Christmas mass at the Jepitu subdistrict hall while those of the GPI held their mass at Semanu subdistrict hall on Thursday morning.

The same was also experienced by the congregation of the Pentecost Church in Pangukan, Sleman, as their church was still sealed by the regency administration. "We have celebrated Christmas on Dec. 21 at a convention building," the church's priest Nico Lomboan said.

At Santo Thomas Church, Seyegan, Sleman, the Christmas mass was carried out with Javanese cultural nuances; the mass was done in the Javanese language and with traditional Javanese costumes.

"This is our way of preserving Javanese culture and passing it on to the younger generation," Father Juventius Desi Setiawan Pr of the church's parish council said.

In Ganjuran, Bantul regency, the Christmas service was observed by hundreds of children carrying gifts to be further distributed to orphanages.

In Semarang, Central Java, Christmas services were conducted since Wednesday evening until Thursday afternoon.

A bomb threat marred the masses at the cathedral on Jl. Dr Sutomo, but after searching the whole compound of the church the police found nothing. The mass on Wednesday evening run smoothly under the police security guard.

"We apply a top alert status," Semarang city police chief Comr. Djihartono said. The police tightly guarded the 291 churches throughout Semarang from Wednesday to Thursday.

Apart from the police, boy scouts and members of the Nahdlatul Ulama's youth wing Ansor Youth Movement also helped secure Christmas celebrations in the province together with the police and military personnel.

Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo and his staff joined the Christmas masses at the cathedral, Blenduk Christian Church and a number of other churches on Wednesday evening.

In Makassar, South Sulawesi, thousands of Catholic and Protestant congregations celebrated Christmas by joining the services held on Wednesday and Thursday, under light rain all over the city.

At the cathedral, the biggest Catholic church in Makassar, congregations prayed for the safety of the nation and especially of those who had been victims of natural disasters.

"We pray that our brothers and sisters who have been victims of natural disasters are blessed with safety and strength," Bishop John Likuada of the Makassar Archdiocese said.

He also prayed for the country's unity despite differences in religions as well for the world's peace especially for the Middle East that was in war. "Hopefully the Christmas peace can also be felt by our brothers and sisters there," John said.

[Slamet Susanto and Andi Hajramurni contributed to this story.]

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/christmas-celebrated-peacefully-nationwide.html

Christmas services banned by Satpol PP

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Sita W. Dewi and Indra Budiari, Jakarta – Despite peaceful Christmas celebrations in the capital, congregations of the Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) Yasmin in Bogor and the Filadelfia Batak Church in Bekasi were barred from holding Christmas services in their church buildings on Thursday.

Bogor Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) officers dispersed the GKI Yasmin congregation who tried to conduct a Christmas service in front of their church building, citing the disputed status of the building as the reason behind the move.

"The building was still sealed so there should be no activities [in the area]," Bogor Public Order Agency head Eko Prabowo said in Bogor, West Java, on Thursday as quoted by tempo.co.

Members of the GKI Yasmin congregation gathered in front of the church at 8 a.m., asking the Satpol PP officers to allow them to enter the building to hold Christmas service, but to no avail.

The congregation later moved the service to the front of the State Palace, joining the Filadelfia Batak Church congregation, which also faced a similar issue at its building in Bekasi, and they held their services jointly.

GKI Yasmin spokesman Bona Sigalingging called on the Bogor administration to comply with the Supreme Court's ruling, which rejected a request from the Bogor City Planning and Parks Agency to revoke a building permit the congregation was issued in 2008.

Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation director Febionesta lamented what happened, saying that, "The incident was a result of synchronized moves by the Satpol PP and intolerant groups."

Muhammad Subhi of the Wahid Institute also regretted the government's failure in taking action against the intolerant groups.

Meanwhile in Jakarta, local churches saw a substantial increase in their attendance numbers during Christmas services, which ran smoothly under tight supervision by police officers and local residents.

Evelyn Huang, spokesperson of the Jakarta Cathedral in Gambir, Central Jakarta, said Wednesday evening that the Catholic cathedral, which on normal days was visited by hundreds of people, had to provide more than 5,000 seats for churchgoers.

"There were people who did not get seats, but they were still solemnly engaged in prayer," Evelyn told The Jakarta Post.

During this year's Christmas, the cathedral held eight Christmas masses, three on Wednesday and five on Thursday, one of which was led by Jakarta Archbishop Mgr. Ignatius Suharyo.

The Christmas theme for this year in the cathedral was "Meet with God through Family", highlighting the role of a loving family as a way to get closer to God.

The Jakarta Police had deployed 200 police officers around the cathedral to safeguard the annual event, during which the congregation read scripture, sang Christmas songs and lit candles inside the cathedral.

During calls to prayer broadcast by the Istiqlal Mosque, located just across from the cathedral, the singing voices went silent.

Members of Banser, the youth wing of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama, also participated in securing the Christmas celebration at the cathedral.

Sukanta, a member of Banser's Gambir chapter, said that his organization regularly sent six people to the cathedral to ensure smooth and peaceful religious activities, including during Christmas.

"This is Indonesia, where people must be able to live peacefully regardless of their differences," Sukanta said while keeping his eye on the street.

In between Christmas masses, a number of politicians, including Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo and Deputy Jakarta Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat, separately paid visits to a number of churches, including the Jakarta Cathedral and the Theresia Church in Menteng, Central Jakarta, and conveyed their Christmas wishes to the churchgoers.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/christmas-services-banned-satpol-pp.html

MUI allows 'Merry Christmas'

Jakarta Post - December 24, 2014

Haeril Halim, Margareth Aritonang and Fedina S. Sundaryani, Jakarta – The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) announced on Tuesday that Muslims were allowed to greet their fellow Christians with a "Merry Christmas", a gesture that may boost religious harmony in the country.

The council chairman, Din Syamsuddin, who was speaking to clarify an earlier MUI ruling banning Muslims from wishing Merry Christmas to Christians, said that not a single article in the ruling explicitly barred Islamic followers from doing so.

Expressing respect through greetings to other religious believers had nothing to do with faith, as claimed by many hard-line Islamic scholars, but it had more to do with socio-cultural activities that could improve friendship in multicultural life.

"Wishing a greeting as a form of our friendship to other faithfuls won't damage our faith. Islam is not a narrow-minded religion. Greetings are more about culture, not faith," Din said.

Muslim scholars have long been debating the controversy of wishing Merry Christmas to Christians. Some said that Christmas is a religious festivity celebrating the birthday of Jesus, the son of God worshipped by Christians.

Hard-line Muslims believed that wishing Christians a Merry Christmas could be interpreted as believing that Jesus was a divine being and not just a prophet, a violation of Muslim belief.

Din said that the MUI, through its ruling established under the tenure of former chairman Buya Hamka in the early 1980s, prohibited Muslims from attending Christmas festivities, as it claimed that such activities were closely related to worshipping God.

"The MUI created the ruling in the 1970s and 1980s because at that time Muslims were invited to become committee members of Christmas celebrations [at churches]. Islam is very strict when it comes to religious celebration, which has something to do with faith. But not a single article in the ruling prohibits Muslims from wishing Merry Christmas," he added.

Ahmad Fuad Fanani of the Maarif Institute for Culture and Humanity said that the Merry Christmas controversy had been recurring every year. Thus, he urged religious leaders to sit together to solve the problem.

"Wishing Merry Christmas is an individual right and it has more to do with social life than faith. Both conflicting parties involved in the controversy should understand each other better, that wishing Merry Christmas is a personal right and they cannot blame each other as being wrong or right," Fuad said on Tuesday.

Churches always become a target of hard-line groups on the days prior to the celebration of Christmas, which falls on Dec. 25 every year.

National Police chief Gen. Sutarman said that 80,560 police officers would be deployed at 1,760 safety posts and 603 service posts nationwide from Wednesday to Jan. 2 to ensure the safety of those celebrating Christmas and the New Year.

He said the military and other related institutions would also assist the security efforts by deploying 19,581 and 65,195 personnel respectively.

Sutarman said two-thirds of their forces would be stationed in provinces where many Christian Indonesians lived and where they were vulnerable to civil disturbances, such as Java, South Sulawesi and Sumatra.

He also said that based on information the police had gathered, there was very little chance that there would be terrorist attacks by militant groups during Christmas or New Year's Eve.

"There is potential [for a terrorist attack], but it's not very significant. However, we remain alert," he added.

Home Affairs Minister Tjahjo Kumolo said that his ministry had already sent a radiogram to provinces to remind them that they must put all their efforts into making Christian Indonesians feel safe enough to conduct their services at Christmas.

In Jakarta, hospitality and entertainment businesses provide various offers, ranging from special packages for Christmas dinner and musical performances, although they are expecting a lower number of visitors.

Due to the long weekend, many Jakartans prefer going out of town to enjoy their Christmas and New Year holidays. The increasing number of travelers from Jakarta to other cities can already be seen at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

[Corry Elyda contributed to this story.]

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/24/mui-allows-merry-christmas.html

Jokowi must end religious persecution

Jakarta Post - December 24, 2014

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration must end the impunity of hard-line groups that perpetrate violence and discrimination against religious minorities in the country, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) said in recommendations included in its year-end report.

Komnas HAM highlighted that hard-line groups, which made up a small fraction of the community, could freely operate and gained power due to "privileges" given to them, especially by government officials and law- enforcement agencies.

"The privileges that such groups have been enjoying include impunity, when they get only the minimum sentence for committing violence against members of minority groups. Some criminal cases against these people have in fact been dropped," commissioner Imdadun Rahmat, Komnas HAM's special rapporteur on religious freedom, told a press briefing on Tuesday.

Imdadun further highlighted that the government's reluctance to punish members of radical groups had served to promote violence against members of the country's minority groups, as reflected in a rise in the number of complaints over discrimination recorded by Komnas HAM this year.

Komnas HAM recorded 67 complaints of religious discrimination in 2014, up from only 39 in 2013. The reports included the forced closure and destruction of places of worships; threats and physical violence against followers of minority faiths; and obstruction of worship. Komnas HAM recorded that the majority of the cases took place in West Java.

Besides non-state actors such as hard-line groups like the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) or the growing Bali Ajeg, which advocated the purity of Balinese culture, Komnas HAM said in its year-end report that heads of local governments, officials from the Religious Affairs Ministry and Home Ministry as well as members of law-enforcement agencies, including Jakarta's Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) and the National Police, were also responsible for religious discrimination against minority groups either by commission or omission.

In its report, Komnas HAM singled out local heads, officials from the Religious Affairs Ministry and members of the National Police for being responsible for shutting down churches and mosques run by the Ahmadiyah community in West Java.

In the report, Komnas HAM blasted the policy of the Religious Affairs Ministry to encourage members of the Ahmadiyah sect to return to "the right path of Islam" by setting up a government-funded special team in the ministry.

The involvement of state actors has also resulted in prolonged discrimination against several minority groups in other areas, such as the Ahmadiyah community in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara; the Sampang Shiites in East Java; and parishioners of the Bogor-based Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) Yasmin and the Bekasi-based Congregation of Batak Protestant Churches (HKBP) Filadelfia in West Java.

Earlier on Monday, the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) released a study showing that women suffered the most from religious violence.

The commission found that women were prone to becoming victims of sexual violence, including rape, as they were considered a symbol of purity in the community. "Women with physical disabilities have suffered the most harassment," the study said.

The study also revealed that many women struggled with being stigmatized as "immoral women" when they tried to obtain documents like marriage certificates, especially when they did not belong to one of the six faiths recognized by the state.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/24/jokowi-must-end-religious-persecution.html

Bogor mayor says GKI Yasmin church not recognized by Christian authority

Jakarta Globe - December 23, 2014

Vento Saudale, Bogor, West Java – The row over a ban on a church congregation from holding a service on Christmas Day continued on Tuesday as Bogor Mayor Bima Arya Sugiarto said the GKI Yasmin church was not recognized by the umbrella Christian organization.

"GKI Pengadilan does not recognize GKI Yasmin," Bima said. "So, there is no such thing as the GKI Yasmin congregation."

GKI Yasmin obtained a permit to open a church in Bogor in 2006, but the permit was later revoked by the municipal government following pressure from local hard-line Islamic groups. The building was eventually sealed by local authorities in 2010.

But a Supreme Court ruling later overruled the local authority decision, compelling Bima to reopen the church – something he has hitherto failed to do, previously citing unspecified reasons.

"I said [the church would not be allowed to conduct a Christmas service] based on the recognition of the official church organization, GKI Pengadilan, as the mother organization for Christian church congregations in Bogor," Bima said on Tuesday.

Bima added that a lack of space was the problem, and that his decision was not a transparent attempt to curry favor with intolerant local Sunni Muslims – a view his critics have frequently aired. The current location had space for only 800 worshippers and that the church required a larger venue, he said.

Bima said he did not wish to prevent anyone from practicing their chosen faith and that his government would aim to find an alternative site for the worshippers.

"So don't make it out as if this is a violation of religious freedom," the mayor said. "It certainly is not. It's [GKI Pengadilan] that proscribes them, so who's being stubborn now?"

Bima said the city administration and GKI Pengadilan would meet to try and find a long-term solution. In the meantime, however, the congregation must not hold any service in public because it may disrupt public order, he said.

GKI Yasmin spokesperson Bona Sigalingging said that the GKI Yasmin congregation would stick to their plan to conduct Christmas service at their now-sealed church.

Bona said Bima was repeating the same line used by former Bogor mayor Diano Budiarto. It was not up to the mayor to interfere or be guided by the internal politics of the churches, Bona said.

"We only hope that Bima Arya will focus on obeying the Supreme Court ruling and the ombudsman's recommendation," Bona said. "Those rulings have nothing to do with GKI's internal situation."

The latest incident is another setback for a congregation that has been forced to go to the country's highest court in search of recognition.

Since 2012, scores of GKI Yasmin congregation members have held prayer meetings outside the State Palace to raise awareness that their house of worship remained sealed despite rulings from the Supreme Court and the Indonesian ombudsman.

Some see GKI Yasmin's Kafkaesque plight as instructive of a wider problem of religious intolerance in Indonesia where local government heads contrive to stifle religious minorities' freedom of expression using labyrinthine planning regulations – forcing local churches and Ahmadiyah mosques, for example, to go through a protracted legal battle to obtain recognition.

Church officials and worshippers repeatedly claimed that their pleas to previous president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to intervene fell on deaf ears – GKI Yasmin had hoped that newly-elected President Joko Widodo would step in over what they see as a clear rejection of a Supreme Court order by an elected mayor, who had previously said that he hoped to handle the church dispute differently than his predecessor.

"How can we just let Bogor be – like it's not a part of the Republic of Indonesia and the Supreme Court and Ombudsman decisions can be safely ignored?" GKI Yasmin spokesman Bona said in November.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/bogor-mayor-bima-says-gki-yasmin-church-recognized-christian-authority/

Komnas HAM: Sharp increase in reports of religious intolerance

Jakarta Globe - December 23, 2014

Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) says it received 67 reports of instances of religious intolerance in Indonesia this year, nearly double the figure from last year, with the police featuring prominently among the alleged perpetrators.

Muhammad Imdadun Rahman, a member of the commission known as Komnas HAM, said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the complaints fell into one of three categories.

"There were 30 reports about the closure or vandalism of churches or the rejection of new churches; 22 reports of discrimination, threats and violence against believers of other [non-Sunni Islamic] faiths; and 15 cases of activities to disrupt religious worship," Imdadun said.

He added that law enforcements officials, particularly the police, were deemed the perpetrators in many of these cases, whether through active participation or negligence.

Imdadun said the commission had issued a number of recommendations regarding the complaints to the authorities, but there was either an inadequate response or none at all.

He also highlighted a high number of complaints originating from West Java province, and attributed this to the rising popularity there of political Islam.

"One of the most dominant factors [in the high number of cases] is political Islam that remains overbearing [in the province]," he said. "Therefore, there need to be extra education programs for public officials so they won't misuse their power."

Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2013 documenting an increasing number of attacks by Islamic militant groups on houses of worship and members of minority groups in Indonesia. The attacks were carried out most commonly against Ahmadis, Christians and Shiite Muslims, the report said.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/komnas-ham-sharp-increase-reports-religious-intolerance/

Poverty & social inequity

An ambitious quest for slum-free Indonesia

Jakarta Globe - December 29, 2014

Hizbul Ridho, Jakarta – The National Development Planning Ministry has claimed Indonesia will be "slum-free" by 2019 as the government plans to improve the living conditions of some of the archipelago's most congested and impoverished neighborhoods.

Citing data from the ministry of public works, National Development Planning Minister Andrinof Chaniago revealed in October that Indonesia's slums span a total area of 38,431 hectares.

Poor sanitation and a severe lack of education among the residents have made these areas a breeding ground for some of the deadliest diseases to plague the nation, including dengue fever, malaria and tuberculosis, he added.

The program will kick off next year and involves building adequate sanitation facilities as well as raising people's awareness on health and hygiene.

Andrinof assured the state would be capable of tackling the necessary infrastructure projects, but the difficult task of altering the residents' attitude toward cleanliness and maintaining hygienic living environments would require strong cooperative efforts between local governments, academics, environmental groups and social foundations.

The ministry's program "will reach its goals if all those involved are willing to work hard together," he said. "Changing people's behaviors and values is an essential aspect [of the program]."

Dedy Priatna, the ministry's deputy for infrastructure, warned there is no one single solution to change people's habits.

"Handling slum areas cannot be resolved with a top-down solution. We need to adjust to each region's unique needs and a cross-sector approach is needed," Dedy said, adding that each city administration will be required to formulate their own Slum Alleviation Policy and Action Plan (Sapola). This plan would also include ways to improve their residents' finances and living conditions.

Nine cities have been chosen for the first stage of the program: Banjarmasin, East Kalimantan; Pekalongan and Semarang in Central Java; Surabaya and Malang, East Java; Tangerang, Banten; Makassar, South Sulawesi; Palembang in South Sumatra; and the city of Yogyakarta.

President Joko Widodo, known for his populist approach, has made poverty alleviation one of his administration's key efforts. Since his inauguration in October, Joko has been working to amplify some of his successful programs as the mayor of Solo, Central Java, and later as Jakarta governor to the national level.

These include the Indonesia Smart Card, a cash assistance scheme for students, and the Indonesia Healthy Card, a free basic health care insurance system.

During his time as governor of Jakarta, Joko transformed many of the city's slums into so-called kampung deret (tiered village) – subsidized, low-rise apartment complexes. These former slums also feature a public park and toilets.

Before leaving Jakarta for the presidency, Joko said the capital would see at least 200 low-cost residential towers each year as part of its push to improve the living conditions of the city's poor.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/ambitious-quest-slum-free-indonesia/

Agriculture & food security

Jokowi aims for food self-sufficiency in three years

Jakarta Post - December 27, 2014

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo reiterated on Friday his target for achieving rice self-sufficiency for the country in the next three years and said that his government would give more incentives to farmers to meet the objective.

Jokowi said that the assistance would be in the form of agricultural tools, including some that he distributed to farmers in Subang, West Java on Friday.

Jokowi visited several areas in Subang on Friday, including the Rice Research Center in Sukamandi, Subang, where he handed over 1,099 hand tractors for farmers groups from 19 regencies in West Java.

In total, 7,800 units were given to farmers in 14 provinces. The government will also provide another 65,931 hand tractors next year for farmers across the country.

The Agriculture Ministry will also give free seeds for 5 million hectares of farm lands across the country, or around 40 percent of the total farm lands nationwide, as well as free fertilizer.

The ministry also plans to revitalize irrigation infrastructure next year, a program it claims could irrigate 1 million hectares of land across the country.

Jokowi has recently instructed his ministers to focus on food and agriculture, as well as the infrastructure developments, in drafting and implementing the revision of the 2015 state budget (RAPBN-P).

The President has also unveiled the government's ambitious medium-term economic agenda, which includes boosting the production of food, particularly rice, to achieve food sovereignty within three years during last week's National Development Planning Conference (Musrenbangnas) during which governors, regents and mayors from across the country were present

"Tractors, fertilizers, seeds [...] I give you all of those. But, I will make sure that you keep your words. Within the next three years, [we] must be self-sufficient; this is non-negotiable," Jokowi told an assembly of farmers and local government leaders.

In his five years of presidency, Jokowi also expects to build 49 new dams in several areas in the country. Currently, 52 percent of the country's irrigation system are in disrepair.

Farmers also have to deal with problems like the chaotic distribution of fertilizer and seeds as well as the lack of modern agricultural tools, all of which had hampered the way for the world's fourth most populous nation to achieve food self-sufficiency.

Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman expects that the government's assistance could serve as an incentive for local heads to meet the self- sufficiency target.

"Because of the assistance, governors have shown their support for the government's self-sufficiency plan. Already, 10 governors pledged to produce an additional 11 million tons of rice in total," Amran said. "If we are able to meet such target, we will reach rice self-sufficiency very soon."

West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan, a Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician, pledged during the event that his province would be able to produce an additional 2 million tons of rice next year.

East Java, meanwhile, was predicted to produce an extra 2 million tons of rice, while South Sulawesi and Central Java would add 1 million tons and 1.5 million tons respectively.

Amran said the country was expected to produce 73 million tons of rice next year, or an increase of 3 million tons from this year's production.

The minister has earlier said that the focus on self-sufficiency in the short-term would be on four key food commodities – rice, corn, soybeans and sugar – all of which are currently being imported.

For the food sovereignty program, the Agriculture Ministry would propose that the government earmark an extra Rp 15 trillion in the 2015 revised state budget, while the Public Works Ministry, which oversees dams and water reservoirs, would propose a Rp 12 trillion allocation to support food sovereignty programs.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/27/jokowi-aims-food-self-sufficiency-three-years.html

Land & agrarian conflicts

Freed activist urges Jokowi to release all jailed advocates

Jakarta Post - December 22, 2014

Fedina S. Sundaryani, Jakarta – Human rights activist Eva Susanti Bande has thanked President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo for granting her clemency, allowing her to be released from prison on Friday, or just 10 days after the President promised her release before national Mother's Day, which falls on Dec. 22.

Luwuk District Court in Central Sulawesi sentenced Eva to three-and-a-half years in prison under Article 160 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) for instigation and vandalism relating to her involvement in a 2010 rally with a group of farmers in Banggai, Central Sulawesi against an oil palm plantation.

The high court increased her sentence to four years. The Supreme Court turned down an appeal last year. Eva then asked for presidential clemency.

"I say this is a miracle as an answer to our long struggle," the agrarian activist said in a press conference at the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) office in South Jakarta on Sunday. "He is a good man," the mother-of-three said, regarding the President.

Eva, who was officially released from the Petobo detention center in Palu, Sulawesi, on Friday, did not forget other activists who remain in prison for human rights activities, including defending farmers who lost their land to big plantations or corporations or because of unilateral government acts to seize their property.

"I asked the President to release 140 farmers and human rights activists, including agrarian activists, who became victims of criminalization," Eva said as quoted by kompas.com.

She hoped the government would take resolving agrarian conflicts more seriously now that an agrarian rights activist had been granted clemency for the first time.

"Even though I am glad that I was granted clemency, it is not the end of the many agrarian conflicts evident to this day. The government must be willing to create real solutions and to act against private companies taking land illegally and with force," she said.

After his inauguration, Jokowi set up the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry, headed by Ferry Mursyidan Baldan. Jokowi had said that the ministry would strengthen the National Land Agency (BPN) and help the police and prosecutors settle land disputes.

National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) commissioner Siti Noor Laila accused law enforcement of siding with private companies in agrarian disputes by physically threatening and intimidating farmers and activists fighting for their agrarian rights.

"We have received various reports from locals against the police, private companies and provincial governments. Most of them say that the police use the law against activists so that they are treated like petty criminals while action is never taken against companies even though they often acquire land illegally," she said.

However, National Police deputy chief Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti said last week that the police had to use a firm hand when dealing with activists or civilians who disturbed the peace by damaging or forcefully shutting down property.

Walhi chairman Abetnego Tarigan explained that most of the activists imprisoned were from Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Kalimantan, where they became caught up in land disputes with local communities.

"Agrarian disputes are a great source of conflict that have plagued our nation for many years. So many of those who fight for people to be able to take charge of and develop their own land end up being criminalized by the existing legal system," he said on Sunday.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/22/freed-activist-urges-jokowi-release-all-jailed-advocates.html

Jakarta & urban life

Most evictions carried out without notice: Study

Jakarta Post - December 24, 2014

Indra Budiari, Jakarta – Recent research conducted by the Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) has revealed that 19 out of 26 evictions undertaken in 2014 in Jakarta by the city administration occurred without any prior notice or negotiation process with the victims.

Fakta head Azas Tigor Nainggolan, during the presentation of the research over the weekend, said in those 19 evictions, the city administration did not carry out preparation such as notifying residents or making sure they would be relocated to adequate housing.

"People always picture eviction as a stressful and unfair process because that is what happens in most cases," Azas told reporters.

He added, for example, that the Pinus Elok low-cost apartment block in Cakung, East Jakarta, which was provided for squatters from the Ria Rio Reservoir area, was currently in poor condition with leaky roofs and murky water.

Contacted separately, Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) public defender Pratiwi Febry said that evictions were very prone to human rights violations and, therefore, the city administration must be able to make sure that evictions were conducted in a humane fashion.

"The administration must understand that evictions should not reduce the quality of life of the victims," Pratiwi told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

She added that before the squatters were evicted from their houses, they should receive notification, appropriate compensation and sufficient information about relocation plans.

"Moving people is not the same thing as moving things; people should know their destination and learn how to adapt there. They will need money and information," Pratiwi said.

Meanwhile, urban analyst Nirwono Yoga said during the research presentation that most of the time the city administration used green-space improvement as its reason for forced evictions, while in fact it had yet to have any clear plan for green spaces.

"They even take the funds for evictions from the urban planning budget because there has yet to be any clear regulation about that," Yoga said.

Yoga estimated that the city would continue the eviction trend in the next two years before cooling down in 2017, when Jakartans are set to elect their next governor.

Fakta's research also found that the Jakarta administration had displaced 13,852 people from 3,751 families through forced evictions in 2014.

Based on the research, most of the evicted families – almost 500 – came from the Sunter River area in North Jakarta, followed by Pejagalan in North Jakarta and East Tebet in South Jakarta with more than 200 families.

Azas added that the research also suggested that in 2014 there were 2,149 street vendors evicted from 17 locations.

Most of the street vendors were evicted from Mangga Besar Station in Central Jakarta, with 683 vendors, Kali Baru Jatinegara in East Jakarta with 300 vendors and Kebayoran Lama in South Jakarta with 200 vendors.

Azas said further that the high number of evictions proved that the capital city did not stand on the side of marginalized people. "This city was designed for the rich and middle-class citizens, while the poor must step away," Azas said.

Fakta recommended in its findings that the city administration under Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama be friendlier to the underprivileged in the future and issue a new regulation on relocations as soon as possible. "The public must also be involved in the city's urban planning," Azas said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/24/most-evictions-carried-out-without-notice-study.html

Governor Ahok defends eviction policy

Jakarta Post - December 24, 2014

Dewanti A. Wardhani, Jakarta – Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama has defended the city administration's tough eviction policy against squatters and vowed to show them no leniency starting in 2015.

The city administration has conducted dozens of evictions throughout the city this year, such as on the edge of railways at Tanah Abang in Central Jakarta and nearby the Ria Rio Reservoir in East Jakarta.

Ahok and the city administration have repeatedly been criticized for being "inhumane" and "anti-poor" by a number of residents and several NGOs. However, Ahok has denied such accusations and defended his policy.

"We are not 'anti-poor'. In fact, we are protecting the poor. We are relocating them to better places with better living conditions. We provide them with newly built and fully furnished rusunawa [low-cost apartments]. And you're telling me this is inhumane?" Ahok told reporters at City Hall in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

Ahok said the evictions were conducted for the sake of the city. "Do you know why Jakarta always floods? It's because our rivers are surrounded by illegal residences. Therefore the rivers' surroundings cannot properly absorb the overflowing water," Ahok said.

Therefore, he went on, the squatters must be evicted in order for the city destroy the buildings and "normalize" the river's surroundings.

Ahok said that starting next year, the city would no longer tolerate or be open to negotiation with squatters. Thus far, many of the city's projects have been delayed because of difficulties in land acquisition.

Ahok added that the city would evict illegal residents and pay compensation of an amount determined by the city administration.

Some squatters, such as those in Kampung Pulo in East Jakarta, have refused relocation as the amount of compensation was much lower than the money they spent to build their homes.

"We will pay compensation of 25 percent of the NJOP [taxable value of property] to squatters whose buildings have stood for 30 years or more. However, we will not pay compensation for those who have been there for less than 30 years," he said.

Meanwhile, Rujak Center for Urban Studies researcher Dian Tri Irawaty said that it was unfair for the city administration to evict only squatters. She said that many buildings and neighborhoods were built in water-catchment areas, which violated the rules of spatial planning.

"For example, Taman Anggrek mall in West Jakarta, neighborhoods and commercial areas in Kelapa Gading and Pluit in North Jakarta, they are all built over water catchment areas. The difference is that the developers are powerful enough to obtain permits while the squatters are not. The squatters are not the only reason for flooding so it is unfair that they are taking all the blame," Dian said, adding that Ahok's private residence was located in Pluit, a water-catchment area already compromised by housing development.

Separately, Jakarta Urban Poor Network (JRMK) member Kokom said that Ahok must provide a solution for the squatters before evicting them.

"For example, the city plans to evict more than 900 families living on the riverbanks of Apuran in Cengkareng, West Jakarta. However, the city has only prepared rusunawa for 200 families. Where are the rest of the families supposed to live?" Kokom said to The Jakarta Post over the phone on Tuesday.

She also asked that the families be involved in the decision-making process. "The city administration rarely asks for our opinion. They rarely listen to our suggestions and aspirations," Kokom said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/24/governor-ahok-defends-eviction-policy.html

In Jakarta, that sinking feeling is all too real

Reuters - December 23, 2014

Bill Tarrant, Jakarta – The Ciliwung River flows from a volcano south of the Indonesian capital, through the heart of one of the world's most densely populated cities and almost into Jakarta Bay. Almost, because for the final mile or so of its course, the river would have to flow uphill to reach the bay.

The same is true for the rest of the half-dozen sewage-choked rivers that wind though central Jakarta. Unable to defy gravity, they've been redirected to canals that drain into the sea.

The reason these conduits are necessary is that Greater Jakarta, an agglomeration of 28 million people, sits on a swampy plain that has sunk 13 feet (4 meters) over the past three decades.

"Jakarta is a bowl, and the bowl is sinking," said Fook Chuan Eng, senior water and sanitation specialist with the World Bank, who oversees a US$189 million flood mitigation project for the city.

The channels of the Ciliwung and other rivers are sinking. The entire sprawl of Jakarta's north coast – fishing ports, boatyards, markets, warehouses, fish farms, crowded slums and exclusive gated communities – it's all sinking. Even the 40-year-old seawall that is supposed to keep the Java Sea from inundating the Indonesian capital is sinking.

Just inside the seawall sits the Muara Baru kampong, or village, that is home to more than 100,000 people. It is now at least 6 feet below sea level, and residents like Rahmawati, a mother of two small children, gaze upward from their front stoops to view the sea.

"When there's a high tide, the ships float almost at the same height as the seawall – we can see the ships from here," said Rahmawati, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Flooding from overflowing rivers and canals in the area is at least an annual event that forces Rahmawati and the rest of the kampong to evacuate to public buildings nearby. High-water marks from the last big flood, in 2013, are still visible on the walls of the kampong.

'Worst sinking city'

Jakarta is sinking because of a phenomenon called subsidence. This happens when extraction of groundwater causes layers of rock and sediment to slowly pancake on top of each other.

The problem is particularly acute in Jakarta because most of its millions of residents suck water through wells that tap shallow underground aquifers. Wells also provide about a third of the needs of business and industry, according to city data.

"It's like Swiss Cheese underneath," the World Bank's Fook said. "Groundwater extraction is unparalleled for a city of this size. People are digging deeper and deeper, and the ground is collapsing."

The effect is worsened by the sheer weight of Jakarta's urban sprawl. Economic development in recent decades has transformed the city's traditional low-rise silhouette into a thickening forest of high-rise towers. The weight of all those buildings crushes the porous ground underneath.

Previous articles in this series have focused on rising seas, which are climbing as the warming atmosphere causes water to expand and polar ice to melt. Ocean levels have increased an average of 8 inches globally in the past century, according to the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But in many places – from metro Houston, Texas, and cities on the US East Coast to the megacities of Southeast Asia – the impact of subsidence, due mainly to groundwater extraction, has been greater. Manila is sinking at a rate of around 3.5 inches a year. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is subsiding 3 inches a year, and Bangkok around an inch.

This has been happening even as populations around the world have tended to concentrate along low-lying coastal land. In 2010, an estimated 724 million people around the world lived in what researchers consider low-elevation coastal zones – coastal areas 10 meters or less above sea level. That number increased 34 percent from 538 million people in 1990, according to a Reuters analysis of data developed by the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center at Columbia University.

The phenomenon has been most pronounced in Asia, home to the top five nations in terms of population growth in vulnerable coastal areas. In China, that population rose 29 percent to 162 million during the 20-year period; in India, the increase was 43 percent to 88 million; and in Bangladesh, it was 46 percent to 68 million.

In Indonesia, the number of people living in vulnerable coastal areas was 47.2 million – one of the highest totals in the world, and up 35 percent since 1990.

Higher seas, sinking cities and more people mean worsening impacts from storms and floods. And the frequency of these events is increasing, too. Recorded floods and severe storms in Southeast Asia have risen sixfold, from fewer than 20 from 1960 to 1969 to nearly 120 from 2000 to 2008, according to an Asian Development Bank study.

No city is subsiding faster than Jakarta. As a whole, the city is sinking an average of 3 inches a year, far outpacing the one-third inch annual rise in mean sea level in the area. The coast near Jakarta is sinking at a much greater average of six inches a year – and in some places as much as 11 inches – according to a 10-year study by a team of geodynamics experts from the Institute of Technology Bandung. Today, 40 percent of the city is below sea level.

"Jakarta is the world's worst sinking city," said JanJaap Brinkman, a hydrologist with the Dutch water research institute Deltares, who has spent years studying the city's subsidence and helping devise solutions for it.

Little can be done to halt the slow upward creep of the seas. But it is possible to stop subsidence. Jakarta has regulations limiting the amount of water that can be extracted daily from licensed wells. A public-awareness campaign on television urges viewers to "save groundwater for the sake of our nation." But enforcement is weak, and illegal wells are rife in the city.

About three-fourths of residents rely on groundwater. Many of them are refusing to connect to the piped water distribution system because it is more expensive, is not always available and sometimes looks dirty coming out of the tap.

The city has a moratorium on new mall construction, mainly to ease notorious traffic congestion, but has otherwise not tried to temper the building that weighs on the ground below.

Watershed moment

Unable to stop itself from sinking, Jakarta has focused its attention on walling off an inevitable inundation from the sea. A February 2007 storm was literally a tipping point for moving the government to act.

A strong monsoon storm coinciding with a high tide overwhelmed ramshackle coastal defenses, pushing a wall of water from Jakarta Bay into the capital. It was the first time a storm surge from the sea had flooded the city. Nearly half of Jakarta was covered by as much as 13 feet of muddy water. At least 76 people were killed, and 590,000 were left homeless. Damage reached $544 million.

As Jakarta cleaned up, then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono formed a task force to come up with a strategy to deal with more frequent flooding.

One option discussed was to move the overcrowded capital to higher elevations southeast of the city or to another island altogether, said Robert Sianipar, a top official from the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs, which convened the task force. With 5,585 people per square km (0.4 square mile), Jakarta is among the 10 most densely populated cities in the world.

Another thought was simply to abandon the old city district of north Jakarta.

Both ideas were dismissed. Jakarta is the economic hub of Indonesia, contributing 20 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Allowing the sea to claim 40 percent of the capital city, home to nearly half of Jakarta's population, was unthinkable, Sianipar said. "If we abandon north Jakarta, that would cost $220 billion in assets – not to count the number of people and productivity that would have to be replaced," he said.

The group decided to focus on bolstering coastal defenses and refurbishing the crumbling flood canal system. The Dutch government offered technical assistance.

The height of the existing 20-mile seawall was raised in 2008. But as that structure slips under the waves, it offers little protection against another big storm surge, or even a moderately high spring tide. At high tide in some places, the city's old seawall can barely be seen poking above the water's surface, both because the sea is rising and because the wall itself is sinking into soft alluvial sediments.

The World Bank warned in a 2012 report that catastrophic floods would soon become routine in Jakarta, "resulting in severe socio-economic damage."

The task force was still trying to decide on an overall strategy when the World Bank's prediction came true in January 2013: Parts of the city were submerged under 6 feet of water after a heavy monsoon storm. Days later, President Yudhoyono ordered the task force to take a bolder approach.

The result was the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development Master Plan, better known as the "Giant Sea Wall" or the "Great Garuda," for its resemblance from the air to the bird-god of Hindu mythology that is Indonesia's national symbol. The $40 billion complex will include a 15-mile outer seawall and 17 artificial islands that will close off Jakarta Bay.

Construction of the first stage of the plan, a new 6-foot-wide inner seawall just behind the existing one, was launched on Oct. 9. The inner seawall is aimed at buying time, holding off another inundation until the new outer wall of the Great Garuda provides long-term protection.

The Great Garuda won't, however, restore the flow of some of the sinking city's 13 rivers and various canals into Jakarta Bay.

Some of the channels drain into floodwater retention lakes, a magnet for new migrants from outlying provinces who squat illegally around their perimeters. Pumping stations then spew the highly polluted water from these lakes the last few hundred yards into Jakarta Bay.

More and bigger such lakes will soon be needed to discharge the water of all other rivers and canals, including the large flood canals, according to the NCICD Master Plan. "You're talking about pumping lakes up to 100 square kilometers," said Victor Coenen, Indonesia chief representative for Dutch engineering and consulting firm Witteven+Bos, who was part of the government's Dutch consulting team. "Where do you find room for that in a densely populated city?"

The Great Garuda would solve that problem by creating a single gigantic storage lake in Jakarta Bay, enclosed by the inner and outer seawalls and fed by pumping stations onshore. "If it comes to that, I'd prefer to have the one big black lagoon offshore," Coenen said.

To prevent the Great Garuda from looking like a great black lagoon, the city must address another huge priority – providing clean piped water to most of its citizens and setting up waste treatment facilities so the rivers and canals no longer have to function as open sewers.

'Not a drop to drink'

Jakarta under Dutch rule was known as Batavia, styled "the Queen of the East" for its distinctive colonial architecture and tree-lined canals. Closer inspection of the coast revealed "a dismal succession of stinking mud-banks, filthy bogs and stagnant pools [that] announces to more senses than one the poisonous nature of this dreadful climate," British writer John Joseph Stockdale observed in his 1811 book, "Island of Java."

Then as now, "stagnant canals" functioned as open sewers and exhaled "an intolerable stench." In the wet season, "those reservoirs of corrupted water overflow their banks in the lower part of town, and fill the lower stories of the houses where they leave behind an inconceivable quantity of slime and earth."

Today, the city has just one small wastewater treatment plant that serves the central business district. Almost everyone uses septic tanks or dumps waste into neighborhood sewers that flow into the canal system.

The slime has mounted over the centuries in the canals, and their embankments have risen in a failing effort to contain the flood waters. The canals that flow to the sea or into the coastal retention ponds have lost up to 75 percent of their capacity, said Brinkman at Deltares.

The city is near the end of a three-year project to deepen the canals and increase the height of their walls. But the homes alongside them are often below the level of the canals now, leaving no "vertical escape" to the rooftop in a flood, he said.

A city with an extensive canal system and a tropical rainforest climate should not have a water shortage. Yet only about a quarter of Jakarta's population is connected to the city's piped water system. Half draw their water from wells, and the other quarter buy from vendors who get their water from both legal and illegal public wells.

Some city residents who could have access to piped water prefer to use groundwater because connection fees – a month's minimum wage – and additional charges on the bill make it much more expensive than a backyard well.

Piped water is also unpopular because it is often filthy when it comes out of the tap. There's a good reason for that: Half of Jakarta's water supply comes from the basin of the Citarum River, which the Asia Development Bank has dubbed "the world's dirtiest river." It is so clogged with industrial and agricultural effluents and waste from the teeming settlements along its banks that it almost seems like you could walk across parts of the river.

Groundwater is hardly better. Seventy percent of the wells in the city are contaminated by the E. coli bacteria from leaking septic tanks, according to a study conducted by the city government.

The water crisis has been a boon to the increasing ranks of water vendors who drag long carts filled with 5-gallon (20-liter) jerrycans of water around the kampongs. One jerrycan costs about 500 rupiah (4 US cents).

They are especially prevalent in the coastal districts, where subsidence has allowed saltwater to flow into the water table, making well water undrinkable. And in some areas along the coast, piped water is only sporadically available during the day.

The Jakarta government does not publish data on the volume of groundwater use. But the city's new governor, Basuki Tjajaja Purnama, said illegal use of groundwater had reached "alarming levels." He said he will start enforcing a 2008 law that imposes fines of up to 1 billion rupiah ($80,000) and jail terms of six years for those who misuse groundwater.

The concrete jungle is not only an intensive water user; it has also taken over natural drainage sites and green areas, preventing the water tables below from being recharged. Instead of seeping into the ground, monsoon rains now wash into the canals and out to the sea.

In 2009, the Ministry of Environment came up with a novel idea to restore the water tables: It issued a decree requiring homeowners and commercial buildings to store rainwater in 3-foot-deep "biopore cylinders" on their properties to absorb and store rainwater. The decree has no enforcement mechanism, and the city environment ministry could not say how many cylinders had been installed.

On the move

The city has recently tried another tack in its water wars: evicting settlers to create green areas along the coast.

Tens of thousands of squatters occupy large swaths of the Muara Baru kampong, behind the seawall and around a retention pond, scavenging, collecting green mussels or shrimp from the dirty water, or picking up work in the boatyards.

Every year, the floods come, people evacuate to public buildings, and the kampong sinks some more. "It's not that bad," says Sukiman, a 41-year-old father of three and a neighborhood chief in Muara Baru. "We can live here."

But Muara Baru's days appear to be numbered. The city has begun shifting the residents to create green space and to restore the Pluit retention pond, which had become clogged with garbage and waste.

Those who have a residency card may be eligible to get an apartment in new high-rise public housing projects. Those buildings, going up alongside luxury apartments and retail stores, will add to the weight pressing down on steadily subsiding land and – as with other besieged coasts around the world facing rising sea levels – only worsen the problem.

Source: http://www.irrawaddy.org/asia/jakarta-sinking-feeling-real.html

Basuki asks ICW to keep an eye on Jakarta officials

Jakarta Globe - December 22, 2014

Hotman Siregar & Lenny Tristia Tambun, Jakarta – Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has enlisted the help of an antigraft watchdog to scrutinize the wealth and business dealings of several Jakarta administration officials flagged for having suspiciously large bank accounts.

The request was made to Indonesia Corruption Watch, a nongovernmental group, following the announcement last week by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the state graft-buster, that it would launch an investigation into former governor Fauzi Bowo over similar findings during his five years in office.

The KPK's move is a follow-up to a report submitted by the Financial Transactions Report and Analysis Center, or PPATK, which says it has discovered 20 suspicious transactions in the bank accounts of around a dozen regional executives, including in Jakarta.

The report, a copy of which was also sent to the Attorney General's Office, was based on an analysis of the officials' wealth as of the end of 2012.

The KPK is reportedly handling two cases involving so-called fat bank accounts, including that of Fauzi, while the AGO is studying eight cases involving smaller amounts of money.

ICW coordinator Ade Irawan said on Monday that Basuki had specifically asked the watchdog to scrutinize the wealth and activities of city officials implicated in the PPATK report.

"Ahok has asked ICW to help monitor, check and track [the wealth and activities] of the officials," Ade said in Jakarta, referring to Basuki by his nickname. "Basically we're [also] scrutinizing their lifestyle." Ade declined to identify the officials being scrutinized.

Fauzi, now the Indonesian ambassador to Germany, had Rp 60 billion ($4.8 million) in his bank accounts that the PPATK linked to dubious transfers of funds from overseas between February and December 2012 – a period during which he also ran for re-election, only to lose to the ticket of Joko Widodo and Basuki. Joko left office this year after winning the presidential election.

"[The KPK] must make sure where the [money] came from. Is it permissible or forbidden money?" Ade said of Fauzi's case. "If [Fauzi] received it in connection to his position as the governor, the money could be considered a gratuity."

At least 10 former and current public servants with the Jakarta administration have been named suspects in several corruption cases, including two urban ward heads and a former head of the Jakarta Communications and Information Technology Office.

Although some are still working in Basuki's administration, the suspicious transactions through their accounts reportedly occurred during Fauzi's term in office, which ran from 2007 until 2012.

The PPATK's findings offer further proof that corruption has devolved from the central government to regional seats of power, says Hifdzil Alim, a researcher with the Center for Anti-Corruption Studies at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University.

Hifdzil said on Monday that with the KPK only having an office in Jakarta and no regional branches, it was unlikely that most of these graft cases would go unchecked.

The KPK is the only law enforcement institution in Indonesia that has gained strong public trust in tackling corruption, with the other two authorities, the National Police and the AGO, ironically deemed to be among the most corrupt public institutions in the land.

"The KPK and the AGO must coordinate in investigating the fat bank accounts, and involve the National Police if they must," Hifdzil said. "Law enforcement officers must swiftly take action to examine those fat bank accounts."

ICW's coordinator for legal affairs, Emerson Yuntho, said on Sunday that Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo's response to the PPATK report would be the first real test of his commitment to fighting corruption.

President Joko's appointment of Prasetyo last month was widely panned by critics as a political favor. Prasetyo, a career prosecutor until his retirement from the AGO in 2006, was for the past few years a member of the National Democrat Party (NasDem), which is part of Joko's ruling coalition.

"Before his inauguration, Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo had no achievements whatsoever [during his time in the AGO]," Emerson said. "These fat bank account cases will test his commitment to law enforcement."

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/jakarta/basuki-asks-icw-keep-eye-jakarta-officials/

Transport & communication

AirAsia flight QZ8501: Plane wreckage found by village fisherman

The Telegraph - December 31, 2014

Jonathan Pearlman, London – Despite the multi-national air-sea search for the missing AirAsia jet, the wreckage was discovered by a 38-year-old Indonesian fisherman named Mohammed Taha, who did not know at the time that a plane had disappeared and assumed the debris was ocean junk.

Mr Taha, from the village of Belinyu, spent Sunday on his small fishing boat and spotted metal objects in the water, but did not return home until Monday night. When he arrived, he heard about the missing flight QZ8501. He later said he was familiar with the airline's red logo and recalled that some of the floating objects had been red.

"I found a lot of debris – small and large – in the Tujuh islands," Mr Taha told Indonesian news website Tempo. "The largest was four metres long and two metres wide. They were red coloured with white silver. It looked like the AirAsia colours."

He immediately called Bagus Rai, his local police officer, and provided an account, including the location.

Officer Rai contacted the search authority, which organised an aerial search for the following morning. At 8am, the objects were spotted. More searches revealed that the objects included the exit door and were from the plane.

"The fisherman said he saw the debris looked like the body of a plane," Officer Rai told the website. "He did not bring the debris back."

Thousands of fishermen along the Indonesian coast have assisted with the search after being contacted by the authorities. But Mr Taha, who had not received the advice, was not among them and had no idea about the multi- national search. He subsequently volunteered to assist during yesterday's operations.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/world/airasia-flight-qz8501-plane-wreckage-found-by-village-fisherman-20141231-12fsyd.html

AirAsia disappearance revives specter of Indonesian aviation safety woes

Jakarta Globe - December 30, 2014

Laila Ramdhini, Hari Gunarto & Tabita Diela, Jakarta – The disappearance on Sunday of an Indonesian passenger jet with 162 people on board has put the country's aviation safety record back in the public glare, even as the industry insists that standards have improved.

The Indonesia AirAsia plane dropped off the radar over the Java Sea en route from Surabaya to Singapore at 6:18 a.m. on Sunday, carrying 155 passengers and seven crew members.

Malaysia-based AirAsia and its regional subsidiaries, including the Indonesian unit in which it holds a 49 percent stake, has never faced a major incident like this since it began operations in 1996.

"The incident is unexpected, considering that AirAsia's reputation as a low-cost carrier is perfect," Arista Atmadjati, an aviation analyst and lecturer at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, told the Jakarta Globe on Monday.

"They mostly are on time, have new planes, and are known to have a good track in terms of engine maintenance schedule. This is really bad luck for AirAsia."

Indonesia AirAsia had until Sunday managed to avoid the safety incidents that routinely dogged other low-cost carriers in Indonesia – in particular Lion Air – which have pursued breakneck expansion, often at the expense of safety and maintenance standards.

The last major incident before Sunday's disappearance of Flight QZ8501 was the crash-landing of a Lion Air flight in the sea just before the runway at Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport as it was coming in to land in April 2013. All 108 people on board survived, and there were no serious injuries. It was Lion Air's seventh accident since 2002.

The most recent deadly incident involving a large jet occurred in May 2012 when a Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet 100 crashed into the side of a mountain in West Java during a promotional flight, killing all 45 people on board. Voice recordings recovered from the wreckage suggested the pilot was chatting with a potential buyer in the cockpit prior to the crash.

The country's poor reputation for aviation safety goes back several years. In September 2005, a flight from now-defunct Mandala Airlines killed 149 people after the plane that took off from an airport in Medan, North Sumatra, crashed into a densely populated residential area. It claimed the lives of 100 people on board and 49 on the ground.

The local aviation safety record hit a nadir in 2007 when the US Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration downgraded Indonesia's safety rating following a series of high-profile incidents – notably the disappearance of Adam Air Flight DHI574, which crashed into the Makassar Strait on Jan. 1, 2007, killing all 102 people on board.

That same year, the European Union banned all Indonesian airlines from flying in European airspace in light of the incidents. The ban was only partially lifted in 2009.

But the days of poor safety records is a thing of the past, says the Indonesian National Air Carriers Association, or INACA.

"Nowadays the safety aspects of all Indonesian airlines is much better than in previous years," INACA chairman Arif Wibowo, who is also the newly appointed president director of flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, said on Monday.

Arif, who previously headed Citilink, Garuda's low-cost subsidiary, said that all airlines were subjected to stringent systems audits to ensure their compliance with safety standards before they could get a an air operation certificate, required to operate commercial flights.

President Joko Widodo said on Monday that he had asked Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan to perform a thorough evaluation of aviation safety procedures in Indonesia.

"I have ordered the transportation minister to recheck all procedures for all flights to maximize" prevention of such incidents in future, Jokowi said at a press conference in Jakarta on Monday.

He also said he had ordered the meteorological agency, or BMKG, to do more to assist airlines in anticipating patches of bad weather – something that Flight QZ8501 had requested permissions from air traffic control to fly over before contact was lost.

The president said he had asked authorities to cooperate with their counterparts from Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Britain, who have all offered technical assistance in the continuing search for the missing plane, believed to have fallen in the Java Sea.

Ignasius said the government would perform a review of Indonesia AirAsia's business and operation, especially with regard to safety standard compliance.

"In the near term, we will review the operations and the business of [Indonesia] AirAsia to ensure a better future performance, especially from the safety aspect," he said

He previously said one of his missions in the Transportation Ministry was to improve Indonesia's aviation safety image in the eyes of the international community.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/airasia-disappearance-revives-specter-indonesian-aviation-safety-woes/

AirAsia plane may have hit bad weather

Jakarta Post - December 29, 2014

Haeril Halim, Jakarta – The disappearance of Air Asia Flight QZ8501 carrying 162 people en route to Singapore from Surabaya remains a mystery, with aviation experts on Sunday saying that bad weather was the most probable factor behind the incident.

The experts' claim is in line with the statement made by the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), which confirmed that waters around Bangka Belitung, where the plane lost contact with air traffic control in Jakarta, were heavily covered by cumulonimbus clouds, a type of cumulus cloud associated with thunder storms and heavy precipitation.

"If a pilot insists on going through such a cloud, it could damage the body of the airplane. The best thing to do in such situation is to get off the traffic path. The pilot made the right decision in doing this after seeing the cloud on the radar, but we don't know what happened after the pilot made the request," aviation expert Air Chief Marshal (ret) Chappy Hakim said on Sunday.

He added that only the plane's black box could reveal the exact cause of the disappearance of the plane, which was declared missing by the Transportation Ministry at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday.

Another aviation expert and former investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), Hanna Simatupang, said cumulonimbus clouds were very dangerous to aircraft, but experienced pilots could deal with them.

AirAsia said the aircraft's pilot Capt. Iriyanto had booked 20,537 hours of flying experience, of which around 6,053 were with his current company.

"With such a record, I believe the pilot could handle such a difficult situation, but one question remains: What other factors led him to decide to leave the flying path apart from avoiding the cloud? We need to know as many as factors as possible to get a better understanding of the incident," Hanna said.

There may also have been something wrong with the aircraft as its emergency locator transmitter (ELT) did not send any emergency signal to the aviation authorities and the National Search and Rescue Team (Basarnas). "That means there's something wrong with the aircraft," Hanna added.

She said aviation firms and the authorities in Indonesia still did not uphold a "safety first" policy to ensure everything was fine before takeoff.

"We have to acknowledge that we still lack skilled human resources in this sector. The authorities should fix this problem. Safety first principles are not yet upheld in this country because aviation still sees profit as the priority," Hanna said.

She further said that high operational and maintenance costs also contributed to the failures of aviation companies to place safety as the first priority.

"This situation decreases their sense of togetherness to provide better safety because they are all profit-oriented. This happens not only in Indonesia but in other countries too," Hanna said.

BKMG spokesman Heru Djatmiko said Indonesia had unique weather challenges, which made it different to other countries. He said that other countries also had cumulonimbus clouds, but the ones in Indonesia were far stronger than those in other countries.

"In other countries, cumulonimbus clouds usually exist from a minimum 30,000 feet to a maximum 40,000 feet. But in Indonesia, they can reach 50,000 feet," Heru said on Sunday night.

He also spoke of other unique weather challenges in Indonesia, like the Barubu or Foehn winds, which frequently hit the Makassar region in September.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/29/airasia-plane-may-have-hit-bad-weather.html

A missing jet and the truth about Indonesia's troubled aviation history

Washington Post - December 29, 2014

Terrence McCoy – For so many years, it came easy to Tony Fernandes, a man who now finds himself at the center of Southeast Asia's latest aviation saga.

The chief executive of Air Asia, which on Sunday lost contact with a commercial jet carrying 162 people, took a company he bought for 35 cents, taking on its $13 million debt, and turned it into an aviation juggernaut. It helped bring budget travel to Southeast Asia. And then it went after the regional jewel: Indonesia.

In the past decade, Indonesia's middle class ballooned from 80 million to 130 million, a fast-growing demographic speckled throughout the nation's 17,500 islands, where flying is nearly always the best travel option. "Indonesia is like a planet," Fernandes, who opened an Indonesian affiliate and, in 2012, bought a local budget airline for $80 million, told the New York Times. "There's lots of room to grow."

But for all of its economic potential, Indonesia's aviation industry remains one of the world's most hazardous. Numerous accidents and incidents marred the industry's rapid ascent, and the European Union banned all but five of its 67 airlines from European airspace. The US State Department likewise expressed concern over Indonesia's aviation practices, and even Indonesia's civil aviation chief in 2007 called it a "never-ending struggle" to improve the country's culture and safety practices. The Federal Aviation Administration ranks it as a "category 2? country for deficient aviation safety, a rating shared by such nations as Ghana and Bangladesh.

"Indonesia has had a questionable safety record. This will once again raise questions about how safe Indonesian airlines are," Greg Waldron, Asia Managing Editor at Flightglobal, an industry data and news service, told Reuters. "This is the first incident for Indonesia AirAsia, but it will cast a spotlight once again on the entire industry."

There is no explanation yet for why an Air Asia Airbus A320-200 – which lifted off from the Indonesian city of Surabaya early Sunday for Singapore – went missing. But Indonesian officials now fear the worst. On Monday morning, the head of the Indonesian search agency said his "preliminary suspicion" was that the plane is now "at the bottom of the sea." He conceded Indonesia doesn't have the right technology to search the ocean's floor. "The capability of our equipment is not optimum," Indonesian official Bambang Soelistyo said, the New York Times reported.

If those suspicions are accurate, ensuing investigations may focus on the confusing last moments before Indonesian air-traffic controllers lost contact with the plane. As the airbus navigated the Java Sea, it encountered a string of violent thunderstorms and big clouds. So the pilot dispatched a request to ascend 6,000 feet and bypass a cloud. But Indonesian air-traffic controllers denied that request – and, minutes later, the plane disappeared without a distress call, The Washington Post's William Wan and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux reported.

Whether or not that decision contributed to the plane's demise, it is just the latest catastrophe to rock an aviation industry some say got too big too fast.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/29/a-missing-jet-and-the-truth-about-indonesias-troubled-aviation-history/

Armed forces & defense

Jokowi wants Indonesia military to be strongest in the region

Jakarta Post - December 31, 2014

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo set a target on Tuesday to improve the capacity of the Indonesian Military (TNI) and defense industry not only to meet the Minimum Essential Force (MEF) targets, but also to transform it into a force to be reckoned with in the region.

In a bid to improve the country's obsolete weapons system, the government earlier implemented a plan to realize the military's MEF blueprint for achieving an independent defense industry by 2024.

Speaking during a meeting with Defense Industry Policy Committee (KKIP) on Tuesday at the Presidential Office, Jokowi pointed out four main priorities for the country's defense policy, including efforts to develop the military to become a well-respected force, to reach self-sufficiency in defense equipment, to meet the country's defensive needs and to make defense policy a part of the comprehensive approach to security.

The President said that the country should no longer depend on imported defense equipment and that efforts (such as bureaucratic reforms) needed to be taken to expedite the transfer of military technology at state-owned defense firms.

"Those [reforms] include measures related to competitiveness and productivity that are designed in such as way that we will be able to partner with such global defense industry players as South Korea, the United States and Western European countries," Jokowi said.

Obsolete weapons systems have hampered the TNI's ability to guard Indonesia's territorial waters from rampant illegal fishing.

The Defense Ministry has recently pledged to spur the development and production of naval weapons by national defense companies in order to help implement Jokowi's maritime-axis vision. The ministry has also aimed to promote joint cooperation between local and overseas defense firms to give local defense firms essential knowledge and experience that would eventually help them independently produce state-of-the-art armaments for the TNI.

In December 2011, the ministry and South Korean Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) signed a US$1.1 billion contract to manufacture three U-209 diesel-electric submarines. PT PAL's engineers will be given a chance to take a close look at the construction of the first two submarines at a DSME plant in South Korea before they construct the last one at the PT PAL plant in Surabaya. In the meeting, Jokowi also wanted defense firms to start working on civilian projects.

"For example, Pindad's [light-armored] Anoa vehicles should be used for commercial trucks, PAL's warships can also be used as commercial ships and for fishing, while the DI's [military transport aircraft] CN295 can also be used for civil defense," he said.

PT Pindad's executive director Silmy Karim said his company was ready to produce non-defense equipment, which would not only encourage the country's defense industry but could also promote economic growth.

"The demands for defense products continue to rise, so we will boost the production of both [defense and non-defense industries]," said Silmy after Tuesday's meeting.

Other than Anoa, Silmy added, Pindad is also looking into production for rail networks and heavy equipment utilizers. "The meeting supported the idea that we should optimize the country's defense production," Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/31/jokowi-wants-ri-military-be-strongest-region.html

TNI to get more involved in disaster mitigation

Jakarta Post - December 27, 2014

Nani Afrida, Denpasar – Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu has hinted that the government would allocate a fraction of the budget for procurement of weapons for the Indonesian Military (TNI) to procure heavy equipment used in disaster mitigation efforts in the country.

"The evacuation of victims from the landslide in Banjarnegara, for instance, took a long time as the villagers were using hoes to dig up survivors and victims. We need more tractors and heavy equipment to do a swift and proper evacuation," Ryamizard said during a gathering with 516 middle-ranking military officers from the Udayana regional military command (Kodam) in Denpasar, Bali on Friday.

In the massive landslide in Jemblung hamlet, Banjarnegara regency, Central Java on Dec. 12, over 100 people were buried when a hill collapsed. Many victims were found on a village road under around 100 meters of thick mud.

According to Ryamizard, parts of the country are very vulnerable to natural disaster and the military must be prepared to join efforts to handle emergency situations.

He said that although the country had experienced many major disasters, including the tsunami in Aceh in 2004, which killed thousands of people, there had been no mechanism in place for helping survivors of such disasters.

The TNI is ready to fill in the gap, Ryamizard said. "The Indonesian military needs more tractors and other heavy equipment to help with the evacuation of victims when disaster strikes," Ryamizard said.

He said that using the defense budget to procure heavy equipment would be more important than purchasing sophisticated weapons systems that nobody knew how to operate.

"Instead of buying ten jet fighters, the government could buy nine jets and the money for one jet could be spent to buy heavy equipment for the military in case of a major disaster," he said. Ryamizard said he is still working out details on the procurement of the heavy equipment.

"I will discuss the plan further with relevant agencies. I will tell them that natural disaster can also be deemed as a [security] threat," Ryamizard said.

The country's military is now working to strengthen its minimum essential force (MEF). TNI commander Gen. Moeldoko said recently that Indonesia now met 38 percent of the MEF, and aimed to reach 100 percent by 2019. The country had allocated Rp 100 trillion to meet the MEF.

Besides heavy equipment, the defense ministry is planning to cooperate with other institutions in creating clean water technology for disasters. The technology is very important to help survivors in a post-disaster situation. "We are working to provide potable water for survivors in disasters," Ryamizard said.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has warned members of the public of more natural disasters in the coming months.

"January will be the peak of the disaster season. More than 90 percent of potential hazards in the country are hydrometeorological ones such as floods, landslides, whirlwinds, droughts, extreme weather and forest and wild fires," the BNPB's Data and Information Center head, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, said earlier.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/27/tni-get-more-involved-disaster-mitigation.html

Military to boost intelligence capacity

Jakarta Post - December 24, 2014

Nani Afrida, Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) has unveiled plans to improve its intelligence capacity as part of efforts to deal with more threats in the future.

The plan was also aimed at bringing back the level of capability the TNI achieved during the New Order era.

"The Reform Era has diminished our intelligence capacity. We have been working to fix it and this is the right moment to start improving our capacity," TNI commander Gen. Moeldoko told reporters at the military headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta, after a two-day leadership meeting that wrapped up on Tuesday.

Under the current system, every military division and every battalion has its own intelligence unit. Moeldoko said that one of the first steps in improving intelligence capability would be to restructure the system and management of human resources.

The TNI chief said that education and training would be intensified for personnel as well as modernization of intelligence technology. There was also a plan to develop synergy in intelligence between military branches, namely the Army, the Air Force and the Navy.

The TNI has recently opened a school for analysis and intelligence management and 30 officers have enrolled in the program as the first batch of students.

"We will run an evaluation after six months and if the results are good, we will add more students," Moeldoko said, expecting that many intelligence masters would graduate from the school.

The school of analysis and intelligent management was officially opened in November 2014 with the aim of training military officers who have advanced skills in intelligence.

Moeldoko said during the school's inauguration ceremony that it was time for the military to have figures like Gen. (ret) LB Moerdani and Gen. (ret) Hendropriyono, both of whom were known as fathers of the country's intelligence service.

Improving capacity in intelligence was not the only agenda discussed in the military leadership meeting over the two days. In the meeting, attended by 174 high-ranking military commanders from across the country, also discussed better pay systems for military personnel.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo earlier pledged on the campaign trail that he would improve the welfare of military personnel. "The President has said that all military personnel would get additional income ranging from 37 percent to 50 percent," Moeldoko said.

The plan to improve the welfare of military personnel has been included in the 2006 strategic plan, or Renstra. However, Moeldoko declined to give details on the amount of funds needed to improve the welfare of soldiers.

He said that he had submitted a proposal for additional budget to the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) and House of Representatives Commission I for political, security and foreign affairs.

Analysts have said that better welfare could improve discipline among military personnel, some of whom seek additional income by providing protection for private businesses because of their low living standards.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/24/military-boost-intelligence-capacity.html

TNI to rotate 100 soldiers involved in Batam clash

Jakarta Post - December 23, 2014

Nani Afrida, Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) has imposed sanctions on 100 soldiers from the 134 Tuah Sakti infantry batallion in Batam, Riau Islands, for attacking the Police's Mobile Brigade (Brimob) headquarters on Nov. 19.

The soldiers will be dispatched to a variety of regions in the east of the country as part of their punishment and to deter other troops from committing such a serious breach of military discipline in the future.

"There are about 100 soldiers who committed military offenses. They will be rotated to areas in eastern Indonesia. We have also replaced the battalion commander," Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo said before attending a TNI leadership meeting at its headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta on Monday.

According to Gatot, the Army and the National Police had jointly investigated the incident which left one soldier dead. The team found two personnel had a prominent role in the incident and both of them were awaiting court martial.

Realizing that social jealousy is one of major sources of the frequent conflicts between police and soldiers, the Army has said it will aim to provide better welfare for soldiers including financially and with housing facilities.

More than 120 soldiers from the battalion which was involved in the attack on the police lived in rented houses outside the military compound. The military will soon provide them with housing facilities. "The construction will be accomplished within four months [...] and none of the soldiers will be allowed to live outside the compound," Gatot stated.

Separately TNI chief Gen. Moeldoko pointed out that the rotation would act as education for the soldiers. He expected that in the future the soldiers would follow orders and uphold their discipline, unlike during the attack when they defied their commanding officers' orders.

"We want to rotate them so they will not mess around again in the same place," Moeldoko said, adding that the 100 soldiers would be deployed to different battalions to avoid similar trouble occurring again.

Dozens of soldiers rampaged through the Brimob headquarters last month. They ignored the direct orders of Bukit Barisan Army chief Maj. Gen. Winston Simanjuntak to surrender to him.

The incident, which lasted for almost seven hours, left one soldier dead, identified as First Pvt. Jack Marpaung, and a local street vendor, Kambani, was injured.

The attack followed a similar clash between Brimob personnel and soldiers following an attempted police raid on a suspected illegal fuel-storage facility in Batam in September. Four soldiers sustained gunshot wounds during that incident.

"The soldiers like to fight because they lack professionalism," Moeldoko suggested as a reason for the soldiers' attitude.

During the two-day leadership meeting, starting on Dec. 22, the military top brass is expected to discuss boosting soldiers' discipline. In the future the TNI plans to upgrade the basic military code for all soldiers.

Another effort will be to improve soldiers' welfare so they do not seek additional income apart from their official salaries. "They need better wages, housing and health insurance," Moeldoko said.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/23/tni-rotate-100-soldiers-involved-batam-clash.html

Criminal justice & prison system

Muslim organizations support death penalty

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – The country's two largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, have given their support to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's call for the swift execution of death-row inmates despite criticism from human rights campaigners.

Jokowi paid a visit to the headquarters of the two organizations in Jakarta on Wednesday in his efforts to rally support for his tough stance on drug convicts. Citing the Koran and the State Constitution, NU chairman Said Aqil Siradj said drug trafficking was a serious crime punishable by death.

Muhammadiyah deputy chairman Malik Fadjar meanwhile said the country's second biggest Muslim organization "fully supports" the execution of drug convicts, given the damage that they bring to young generations through drug addiction problems.

The National Police narcotics unit chief Brig. Gen. Anjan Pramuka Putra recently revealed that the number of drug-related cases nationwide had increased dramatically from 17,539 last year to 18,788 this year, saying that many foreign drug rings targeted Indonesia as their market base because the demand for drugs increased every year.

The police have also named 25,151 suspects in drug-related cases throughout 2014, an increase from 23,000 suspects last year. According to the police, 126 of those suspects were foreign nationals from several countries, including Taiwan, China and Nigeria.

Jokowi maintained that the call for the execution of drug convicts, including some foreigners, would not trouble Indonesia's diplomatic ties with other countries. "Those are different issues. You must understand that between 40 to 50 Indonesians die due to drug abuse every day," Jokowi said.

Later on Wednesday, Jokowi held a Cabinet meeting to further discuss the drug abuse cases with relevant ministers, including Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno, National Police chief Gen. Sutarman, National Narcotics Agency (BNN) head Anang Iskandar and Attorney General M. Prasetyo.

Earlier this month, Tedjo said that Jokowi has authorized the executions of five drug convicts sometime in December, with 20 other death-row inmates being prepared to face the firing squad next year.

Although the country's criminal justice system recognizes a death-by-firing-squad execution for convicts who already received their legally binding sentence, the Wednesday Cabinet meeting discussed the legal complication that arose from a Constitutional Court ruling announced earlier this year that allows a convict to file multiple case reviews for their convictions.

"We will coordinate first with the Supreme Court so that if there are indeed case reviews, the legal process could be expedited," Prasetyo told reporters after Wednesday's Cabinet meeting.

Tedjo meanwhile said that four drug convicts – instead of five as mentioned in his previous statement – were probably going to be executed in January next year, not this month.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/muslim-organizations-support-death-penalty.html

Police & law enforcement

Police fire 119 officers this year, but Djoko Susilo still on payroll

Jakarta Globe - December 31, 2014

Farouk Arnaz, Jakarta – A total of 119 police officers have been fired in the past year, but Indonesia's most infamous cop – Insp. Gen. Djoko Susilo – is still on the payroll.

Djoko, the former chief of the National Police's traffic division, was sentenced to 18 years in jail and fined Rp 1 billion ($80,000) after he was found guilty of corruption in the Rp 200 billion procurement of driving simulators for use in tests to issue driver's licenses.

"The total of 119 is less than last year, when there were 208 [officers who lost their job]," Gen. Sutarman, the chief of National Police, said on Wednesday.

Sutarman said that the reason why Djoko was still officially employed was that police were waiting for an internal ruling on his status. Djoko tendered his resignation but may instead be fired from the force. A police commission is yet to rule on the matter.

Apart from the officers being fired, another 127 cops were convicted in a criminal court – 23 more than last year.

Another 9,892 officers were given disciplinary sanctions, while 444 were found to have violated the police code of ethics.

However, no fewer than 35,119 officers of the National Police were given commendations this year for exceptional service.

Corruption crackdown

Indonesian police have been trying to boost their image by cracking down on corruption and ineptitude within the ranks

Earlier this month, just days after a controversial new regulation banning motorcycles from some of Jakarta's main streets caused chaos and confusion, the director of the city"s traffic police unit was relieved of his command, just seven months into the job.

Sr. Comr. Restu Mulya Budiyanto just turned out to be not the right man to fix the capital's traffic woes, Sutarman told the Jakarta Globe at the time, stressing that the replacement had nothing to do with a recent corruption scandal involving a number of top traffic cops.

The police force has long been identified by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt institutions in Indonesia.

In February, the National Police named Sr. Comr. Conny Tri Restyoko, the former Surabaya Police chief, a suspect for allegedly swindling colleagues out of Rp 800 million. He was said to have invested the money in a vehicle license and registration agency, which reportedly benefited from his connections to the traffic police to expedite the issuance of the documents.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/police-fire-119-officers-year-djoko-susilo-still-payroll/

Mining & energy

Widodo makes biggest change to Indonesia fuel subsidies

Bloomberg - December 31, 2014

Fitri Wulandari, Eko Listiyorini & Sharon Chen, Jakarta – Indonesia will cap the diesel subsidy and scrap aid for gasoline beginning tomorrow, the biggest changes to a decades-old system that has tied up budget funds and bloated energy imports.

President Joko Widodo's government will implement a fixed diesel subsidy of 1,000 rupiah ($0.08) a liter effective Jan. 1, Energy Minister Sudirman Said told reporters in Jakarta today.

The subsidy for gasoline will be scrapped, said Sofyan Djalil, coordinating minister for economic affairs. The government will pay gasoline distribution costs for areas outside of Java, Madura and Bali, Said explained.

This marks the second act in efforts by Widodo, known as Jokowi, to fix the country's energy subsidy system, having raised fuel prices in November less than a month after he took office. While Indonesia is still behind India and Malaysia, which scrapped government spending for keeping diesel and gasoline prices low earlier this year as oil costs plunged, today's announcement moves Southeast Asia's biggest economy closer to a similar dismantling.

"A lot of credit must go to Jokowi, he's upping the game to the point of changing the game by capping the upside to subsidies," said Vishnu Varathan, a Singapore-based economist at Mizuho Bank Ltd. "This is what we were looking for. A market-based price mechanism would be very desirable and I think global oil price trends have allowed them to move in that direction a lot more smoothly and a lot sooner."

The changes for January can take effect tomorrow without parliamentary approval under the current budget, Minister Djalil said. The new system will need to be sent to the legislature for approval under the 2015 budget, due to be submitted in first week of January, he said.

"We will bring this to the parliament and God willing, parliament will agree with the government" because it will save a lot of money, Djalil said.

The price of diesel in January will be 7,250 rupiah a liter, compared with the current subsidized price of 7,500. The retail price for kerosene will be set at 2,500 rupiah a liter, the same as the current price, and gasoline will be 7,600 rupiah per liter next month, lower than the current subsidized rate of 8,500.

Authorities will announce retail diesel and gasoline prices on a monthly basis and they will fluctuate in line with international prices, the government said.

"This is a big deal," Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. economist Wellian Wiranto wrote in a report. "Subsidies were supposed to eat up more than 13 percent of total expenditure in 2015 originally, but now whittled down to a mere 1 percent. The country can now look ahead to how best to improve living standards, rather than look over its shoulders all the time for oil price risk."

Jokowi's fuel subsidy shake-up to free funds for development spending, along with a clean-up of the energy industry, is encouraging some investors. Indonesia's bonds advanced last week, with the 10-year yield falling by the most since October, on optimism the government would move forward with plans to curb fuel subsidies. The rupiah rose 0.1 percent today to 12,436 per dollar taking its gain over the past two weeks to 1.8 percent, according to prices from local banks.

Indonesia has been subsidizing fuel since the first oil price shock in the 1970s and kept prices at less than $0.20 per liter until 2005, according to a World Bank report published in March. Dismantling the subsidy program is a political hot potato – protests accompanied past price increases and riots spurred by soaring living costs helped oust dictator Suharto in 1998.

"It probably makes more sense to have the fixed fuel subsidy because it's more transparent, considering the uncertainties about oil price after its recent slide," Gundy Cahyadi, an economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. in Singapore, said before the announcement. "It's probably going to be easier for the government to eventually do away with fuel subsidies altogether once they move to the fixed subsidy."

Jokowi increased the price of gasoline and diesel by 2,000 rupiah per liter on Nov. 18, prompting the central bank to raise its benchmark interest rate to guard against inflation. Some 276 trillion rupiah was earmarked for fuel subsidies in the 2015 budget prior to the price increase, equivalent to 13.5 percent of total spending.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/widodo-makes-biggest-change-indonesia-fuel-subsidies/

Fishing & maritime affairs

Fishermen express concerns over fuel-price hikes

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Suherdjoko, Demak, Central Java – Fishermen in Demak, Central Java warmly welcomed the government's move to intercept and sink illegal fishing vessels, but have voiced their complaints over recent fuel-price increases.

"The sea is ours, so the resources should be ours. The illegal vessels must be expelled. However, we are currently impeded by the price of diesel fuel, which has increased. We request a special price for fishermen," said Muazana, who owns two fishing boats in Morodemak, in a meeting on Tuesday.

Another fisherman, Musyafa, expressed similar concerns. "Fuel prices have increased, but the price of fish has remained the same. At the end of the day, proceeds from today's catch will only be enough to buy diesel. So, how much will my 20 crew members earn?" asked Musyafa.

The two, along with other fishermen attended the lunch meeting with officials from the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry.

The ministry's fish catch director general, Gellwynn Jusuf, acknowledged that the increased prices of subsidized fuels had burdened small-scale fishing enterprises.

"That's why the government provides a fuel-quota allocation for fishermen and fishing enterprises. As a form of support for the policy, the Maritme Affairs and Fisheries Ministry has established cooperation with Bank BRI to develop fuel cards for fishermen as a way to control their fuel consumption," said Gellwynn.

The fuel card is aimed at enabling fishermen to obtain subsidized fuel and ensure transparent distribution and minimize irregularities in distribution.

Meanwhile, the ministry's secretary general, Sjarief Widjaja, said the firm stance was able to serve as a deterrent for foreign fishermen who illegal fished Indonesian waters. The number of illegal fishing boats operating in Indonesia has decreased since October.

"There were 35 foreign vessels that were intercepted but left Indonesian waters on their own," said Sjarief. The ministry is also impounding vessels on land to revitalize the coastal economy, such as trading at fish landing facilities (TPI) and fish curing by women.

The government has also banned trans-shipment, or the unloading of fish from fishing boats to freighters. "Trans-shipment could kill the coastal economy because the fish would be sold overseas," he said.

The ministry is attempting to boost the welfare of fishermen by initiating various programs together with relevant ministries, institutions and banks, such as the 1,000 Independent, Beautiful and Advanced Fishing Settlements Integrated Program, or Sekaya Maritim.

"The program will be carried out in stages next year by targeting 1,000 villages in 330 fishing ports and fishery centers in Indonesia, one of them being the Morodemak coast," said Sjarief.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/fishermen-express-concerns-over-fuel-price-hikes.html

Graft blocks war on illegal fishing

Jakarta Post - December 26, 2014

Haeril Halim, Jakarta – A meeting held between the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has shed light on potential graft that may hamper the ministry's efforts to tackle illegal fishing carried out by foreign vessels in the country's territorial waters.

After the meeting on Wednesday night, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said her office had handed over reports on the potential problems that the ministry could face in its war against illegal fishing as well as its efforts to effectively manage the country's abundant maritime resources.

"We have discussed the potential problems with the KPK. The antigraft body has also followed up on the findings we submitted earlier on a number of fishing companies. The KPK found that some of the companies did not exist. We need to follow up on the findings," Susi said during a press conference at KPK headquarters.

KPK chairman Abraham Samad, speaking after Susi, lambasted the National Police and the Attorney General Office (AGO), as well as the Indonesian Military (TNI) for not giving their full support to the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry in its efforts to combat illegal fishing.

"We have found that a number of institutions do not fully support the ministry's policy. Earlier, the KPK signed an agreement with the AGO, the National Police and the TNI to protect the country's natural resources. The agreement should provide the legal grounds for them to help the ministry destroy illegal vessels in our waters," Abraham said.

On Dec. 5 in Tanjung Pedas waters near Siantan Island in Anambas Islands regency, Riau province, the Navy destroyed three Vietnamese boats caught illegally fishing in Indonesian waters.

In the press briefing, Susi also disclosed that the government had also sent home 1,928 Vietnamese fishing vessels that had earlier sought permits from Indonesian authorities to enter the Natuna Islands to avoid being engulfed by the Hagupit typhoon that recently struck some parts of the Southeast Asia region.

"No more Vietnamese boats are in our waters today. A small country like Vietnam has a huge number of vessels that could potentially enter our waters [to illegally fish]. These 1,928 vessels are mostly big, with a capacity of 700 gross tons. Think about how many vessels from other larger neighboring countries could have entered our waters," Susi said.

The waters around the Natuna and Anambas islands have an abundance of fish, as they are located where warm and cold streams meet, providing an ideal environment for both plankton and fish to thrive.

Local fishermen, however, have faced poor living conditions for years, with the majority of them catching fish using traditional methods and small boats.

"After the implementation of the sinking policy, I received many text messages from fishermen saying that they are now able to catch more fish. The government has to implement the policy consistently and I need support from relevant institutions," Susi said.

The KPK has also called on law enforcement agencies to annul regulations that could block the ministry's efforts to take tough actions against foreign vessels illegally enter Indonesian waters. Abraham then reiterated the KPK's full support for Susi's policy, saying that more concrete efforts were needed to save the resources.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/26/graft-blocks-war-illegal-fishing.html

On illegal fishing front, TNI still finding it hard to catch 'big fish'

Jakarta Post - December 23, 2014

Nani Afrida, Jakarta – Criticized for netting only the small fry in its struggle against illegal fishing, the Indonesian Military (TNI) has claimed that the vast maritime territory and lack of equipment are its biggest obstacles in catching larger boats.

"We are very serious in doing our job and never play games on this duty or pussyfoot [with the illegal fishermen]," TNI commander Gen. Moeldoko told reporters before attending an executive meeting at the military headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta, on Monday.

He also denied that the force's slow response was due to collusion with the perpetrators.

Moeldoko said the military, especially the Navy, found many difficulties in doing its job because of the huge size of Indonesia's waters, lack of fuel supply and technical issues. "Our seas are enormous, although they look small on the map," he said.

With the large maritime territory, Moeldoko said the Navy needed more fuel to operate its patrol boats and frigates.

For example, the Navy needs Rp 900 million (US$72,358) worth of fuel just to operate a frigate to patrol the country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is the extension of a coastal state's territorial rights. The zone can extend up to 200 miles seaward from the state's coastline.

The Navy's ships are scattered throughout Indonesia's territory, making it difficult to mobilize a vessel from one area to another. It takes hours or even days to reach destinations due to the space involved.

"When we reach an area, the illegal ship has disappeared or has moved to another area," Moeldoko said, adding that the illegal fishing usually occurred on Indonesia's borders.

The military chief also stated that illegal fishing boats had their own radars, which were technologically advanced, and their ships were faster compared to the Navy's ships.

"We need time and space, that is why we cannot arrest all illegal fishing boats across the country faster. We get the information, but to move we need space and time," he said.

Earlier, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti reported that 13 illegal fishing vessels from China and Taiwan had been detected around Indonesia's waters. However, the Navy had neither information on the illegal fishing boats nor the orders to seize the vessels.

Moeldoko said that even though the Air Force found the illegal boats fishing in the territory of Indonesia, it could not fire on them. "Shooting fishing boats using jet fighters is impossible because we have legal mechanisms," he said.

Navy chief of staff Adm. Marsutio said the Navy not only combatted illegal fishing but had many other tasks as well. "We have to safeguard our territory and maintain diplomacy with other countries. It is part of our mandate," he said.

Indonesia loses about Rp 300 trillion annually due to illegal fishing and currently there are some 5,400 illegal ships operating in Indonesia's territory. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has instructed law enforcers to take firm action against foreign ships stealing fish from Indonesian waters, including by sinking them on the spot.

On Dec. 5, the Navy destroyed three Vietnamese boats for illegally fishing in Tanjung Pedas waters in Riau Islands province. The three ships were caught by the Navy on Nov. 2. On Dec. 21, the Navy blew up two other illegal ships at Laha Teluk, Ambon. The ships, flying the Papua New Guinea (PNG) flag, were caught on Dec. 7 near the border of Indonesia and PNG.

Article 69 of Law No. 45/2009 on fisheries stipulates that the coast guard can sink foreign vessels operating illegally in the country's territorial waters based on sufficient preliminary evidence.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/23/on-illegal-fishing-front-tni-still-finding-it-hard-catch-big-fish.html

Economy & investment

Business lobby urges tax amnesty for reinvestment in Indonesia

Jakarta Globe - December 22, 2014

Muhamad Al Azhari, Erwida Maulia & Agustiyanti, Jakarta – A leading business lobby with strong ties to the administration of President Joko Widodo has called for a tax amnesty, in which the authorities will waive off past taxes and penalties to conglomerates and individuals parking billions of dollars worth of funds overseas, in a bid to reinvest that money in Indonesia.

Hariyadi Sukamdani, the chairman of the Indonesian Employers Association, or Apindo, made the call last week amid recent sharp volatility in the rupiah exchange rate on expectations of a huge outflow of funds from the country once the US Federal Reserve raises its benchmark interest rate.

"It may sound unfair that tax offenders get an amnesty. But the question is, do we want to move forward or keep looking backward?" Hariyadi said.

Among those that would benefit under such an amnesty are conglomerates and banking executives who defaulted on government bailout funds in the wake of the 1998 Asian financial crisis and stashed the money in Singapore.

The government back then spent more than Rp 460 trillion ($37.1 billion) in liquidity to bail out several banks that were devastated by the crisis, which included a sharp fall in the value of the rupiah.

The government still maintains a list of the companies and individuals that fled with the money, and has prosecuted only a handful.

Since the crisis many Indonesian conglomerates continue to park their money in Singapore in a bid to keep it beyond the reach of the Indonesian authorities and to take advantage of the city-state's position as a global financial services hub.

"Why am I raising this issue?" Hariyadi went on. We all know billions of dollars of money parked in Singapore is the money of Indonesian tycoons. This money has been used by financial corporations there to speculate and even buy assets in our country. Isn't that silly?

"Just look at Italy; it is a country of mafia [sic], yet they managed to bring back more than $100 billion to their country from a tax amnesty program."

Italy's tax amnesty program was introduced in 2001, and by 2009 had yielded some 80 billion euros ($97.8 billion) of the 500 billion euros that the country's central bank estimated was held by its citizens in undeclared funds overseas.

So-called high-net-worth individuals in Indonesia, with assets of at least $1 million, will hold a projected $250 billion overseas by 2016, according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

Four-fifths of that amount, or approximately $200 billion, will be held in Singapore in the form of bank deposits, stocks, fixed income and properties.

The figures, released last week, come from McKinsey's survey of 60 high-net-worth individuals, 83 percent of whom said they had foreign bank accounts and kept 40 percent to 50 percent of their financial assets overseas.

McKinsey partner Guillame de Gantes said the funds could benefit Indonesia's financial markets if kept inside the country.

Citing the findings from the survey, de Gantes named business considerations as the main factor for keeping money overseas, followed by the availability of banking products, tax advantages, immigration issues, risks avoidance and, lastly, security and privacy.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said his ministry was considering some tax incentives, including a tax amnesty and the omission of double taxation, to lure wealthy Indonesians to withdraw their assets from abroad and deposit them at home.

"If we want the money to quickly come in, tax amnesty is the choice. We're considering [the option], but will need legislation for that. The tax law must be amended," Bambang said.

A lighter version of a tax amnesty was implemented by the administration of the former president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in 2008, through the so- called sunset policy.

This policy allows taxpayers to pay unreported or back taxes without the penalty of interest charges. The purpose of the program is to boost the number of registered taxpayers.

Bambang said that eliminating double taxation may also have instant results in terms of repatriating money to Indonesia. "We must implement those policies slowly, though, because we have to examine each option," he said.

Earlier, a deputy commissioner for banking supervision at Indonesia's Financial Service Authority (OJK), Mulya Siregar, said as many as 40,450 Indonesians were currently classified as high-net-worth individuals with a combined wealth inside the country totaling $143 billion. The number of these individuals grows by around 7.5 percent annually.

"That exceeds the growth rate in Singapore, at 4.5 percent, and India, which is 2 percent," Mulya said.

Ragimun, a researcher with the Finance Ministry's fiscal policy office, said that although a tax amnesty was an option worthy of consideration, it should not be implemented in the near future.

"One of the flaws of a tax amnesty, if implemented in Indonesia, is that it may lead to a range of violations and moral hazards, because access to information here and other facilities needed as prerequisites for a tax amnesty are not yet adequate," he said in an analysis published on the Finance Ministry's website.

"A tax amnesty [plan] must be delayed pending [...] legal tools to support implementation of the policy."

Ragimun added that public resistance to a tax amnesty remained high, suggesting that alternatives like the sunset policy and tax holidays would make taxpayers more compliant with the law and subsequently boost Indonesia's tax revenue.

Revrisond Baswir, a political economist at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University, was quick to slam Apindo's suggestion.

"Apindo was among those that pushed strongly for the [subsidized] fuel price hike, which is certainly burdening the people, from the higher price of fuel to other things," he said.

"Now they're asking for a tax amnesty. So there's an impression here that while people at large are made to bear a greater burdens, the rich will enjoy a lighter burden."

Revrisond added there was no guarantee that a tax amnesty would lure wealthy Indonesians to keep most of their funds inside the country, saying concerns over domestic political stability were the main factor driving them to look overseas.

"Even Indonesia's high interest rate is proven to have no effect [to lure them to keep their money here]. There are many other factors to consider, the most important being political stability," he said.

Revrisond added that with most of Indonesian high-net-worth individuals being of ethnic Chinese descent, the issue of social and income gaps between them and "native" Indonesians might also become an issue once again, citing the May 1998 riots that targeted Chinese-Indonesians and their businesses.

The rioting, reportedly instigated by elements in the military, also included the rape of hundreds of Chinese-Indonesian women, and resulted in countless Chinese-Indonesians fleeing the country and not returning.

"The problem is, we've never been open about this wide income and social gap in our society, which has caused the feeling of insecurity to linger [among 'native' Indonesians] and the wealthy Chinese-Indonesians to remain on guard," Revrisond said.

This is what has kept wealthy Chinese-Indonesians putting a considerable amount of their money abroad rather than leaving it in the country, he added.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/business-lobby-urges-tax-amnesty/

Analysis & opinion

Jokowi's Christmas peace for Papua: Will it last long?

Jakarta Post - December 30, 2014

Dwi Atmanta, Jakarta – The Christmas gift came three days late for Papuans this year, but many in the easternmost territory did not seem to mind. What is a more precious Christmas present for them than getting together with President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who had promised to care for them on the first day of his presidential election campaign early in June?

Jokowi arrived in Papua on Saturday to celebrate Christmas and went on his characteristic field trips across the province and neighboring West Papua until Monday. It was his first Papuan excursion to listen to local people's grievances and demands since his inauguration in October.

There was nothing peculiar about such high expectations as Jokowi set his feet on Papua after a series of bloody incidents, including the shooting of five teenagers by military and police troops during a clash in Paniai regency early this month.

Jokowi had refused to comment on the Paniai incident, pending a thorough investigation, and it was his silence on the killings that sparked protests from several Papuan church congregations, which immediately announced their objections to the President's visit.

During the Christmas celebration on Saturday, however, Jokowi broke his silence. He said he had ordered the National Police to thoroughly investigate the Paniai incident. "I want this case to be solved as soon as possible so that such an incident will not recur in the future. We want Papua to turn into a land of peace," Jokowi told thousands of Christmas revelers.

As if to elaborate on the President's remarks, Coordinating for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno said the Indonesian Military, police and the National Commission on Human Rights were conducting a fact-finding mission to find those responsible for the act of violence.

The government's commitment to settling the Paniai shooting beyond a doubt is understandable given the many cases of atrocities in Papua that have remained unaddressed. But leaving the police and military to conduct investigations into an offense involving their own personnel will only raise the question of credibility because of the risk of conflicts of interest and the spirit of the corps facing the investigators.

As has happened in the past, the public will be unable to expect a transparent investigation, let alone justice to be delivered.

Jokowi realizes the long-standing practice, but the existing criminal justice system gives him limited options. He can hope the rights body will declare the Paniai shooting a crime against humanity, which will then enable him to order the Attorney General's Office to bring to justice whoever is held responsible for the killings.

The human rights trial, however, will not materialize without the consent of the House of Representatives, which currently is controlled by the opposition.

Fair settlement of the Paniai case alone is a daunting job for Jokowi. In fact, Papuans have been waiting for a comprehensive solution to decades of being deprived of their rights in their own homeland, which ironically occurred after their official incorporation into Indonesia through the Act of Free Choice in 1969. For years Indonesia had fought for sovereignty over Papua from the Dutch only to throw the Papuans from misery into ordeal.

Reform movements led to the granting of special autonomy for Papua, but no significant changes have happened to the lives of Papuans despite trillions of rupiah having been transferred from Jakarta. Poverty and poor access to healthcare and education for Papuans have continued to plague Papua nearly 14 years after the inception of the special autonomy, which the Jakarta elites believed was a decent retribution for Papua.

The generous special autonomy funds handed to Papua and later West Papua correlate with the increasing number of corruption cases involving local public officials in the two provinces. The naming of 44 West Papua legislative council members and the province's regional secretary Marthen Luther Rumadas and former Papua governor Barnabas Suebu graft suspects recently is just proof that corruption thrives while supervision is lacking in Papua.

Papua is a paradox of Indonesian development. Blessed with abundant natural resources, Papua and West Papua are home to regencies that rank among the most impoverished and least developed regions in the country. Recurrent acts of violence in the territory, many of them allegedly perpetrated by separatist groups, only indicate that injustice, inequality and marginalization of local people remain unfinished business for Jakarta, no matter who is president.

Then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised a new deal for Papua after taking office 10 years ago, but his government's approach in dealing with Papua was the same old story. Jakarta's recipe to tackle the Papua issue has never departed from "divide and rule", as was apparent in the forcible formation of West Papua province in 2004 and a plan to create two more provinces and a new military command there.

Like his predecessor Yudhoyono, Jokowi made many promises to the Papuans, including his plan to visit the land three times a year. It seems exaggerated, even if Jokowi hopes his frequent trips to Papua will ensure the development agenda and improvement of public services to run in accordance with the plan.

To woo Papuan voters back in June, Jokowi underlined Papua's importance. Now the country's leader, he has to show why Papua matters to him and the whole nation and how he will translate his pledges into policies.

As happened when Indonesia solved the Aceh problem with dignity in 2005, the central government's policies toward Papua should be based on respect for the local people, which will require a dialogue between two equal parties. A dignified settlement will need efforts on Indonesia's part to heal Papua's past wounds, which of course include a formal state's apology to Papuans for atrocities and the government's indifference that they have endured for a long time.

The most urgent measure is revising the 2001 law on special autonomy for Papua. Prior to the end of its term in October, the Yudhoyono administration submitted the draft revision, which offers Papuan rebels a part in local politics, reminiscent of the deal accepted by the then Aceh separatist group, or GAM, which formed the Aceh Party.

Without assurance of an all-inclusive solution, the long-lasting peace Jokowi will try to create in Papua will never come true.

[The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.]

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/30/jokowi-s-christmas-peace-papua-will-it-last-long.html

Papua probe shows Jokowi's true colors

Jakarta Globe Editorial - December 28, 2014

Joko Widodo was always going to be the president that his predecessors were not, from his man-of-the-people ways to his love of heavy metal.

This past weekend, he again demonstrated the quality that has inspired in Indonesians so much hope for positive change, when he promised to set up a fact-finding team to probe the shooting deaths of five unarmed Papuan civilians, reportedly by the security forces.

The president was in Papua for Christmas celebrations when he made his remarks about the Dec. 5 shootings in Paniai district.

By most credible accounts, the incident involved police firing indiscriminately into a crowd of unarmed civilians protesting police brutality against a 12-year-old boy.

The police chief's more fantastical account is that "gunmen in the distant hills" fired on the crowd, whipping it up into a violent frenzy and forcing police to act in self-defense.

Joko has done something unprecedented and hugely commendable here: He has refused to take the word of the police chief at face value and instead taken it on himself to ensure that the truth, no matter how painful, comes to light through the unaberrated lens of an independent investigation.

For far too long the security forces have controlled the narrative that the rest of Indonesia and the world have obtained from Papua. That they have long taken a heavy-handed approach to anything deemed a security disturbance is no secret.

Joko's move is perhaps the first official step by any Indonesian government to bring official accountability to an act of excessive use of force by security officers in Papua. This will be hugely important in clearing the path toward addressing the legitimate grievances that Papuans have long held against the government. Even if that is Joko's only legacy, it will be a worthwhile one.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/opinion/editorial-papua-probe-shows-jokowis-true-colors/

Treating Papuans as citizens not targets in Indonesia's killing field

Jakarta Post - December 24, 2014

Neles Tebay, Jayapura – The shooting of unarmed civilians took place on Dec. 8 in Enarotali, the capital of Paniai regency in the province of Papua. Four were killed on the spot and roughly 17 were wounded. All the victims were indigenous Papuans.

The shooting occurred when hundreds were demonstrating by performing a traditional dance in front of a military office in Enarotali, demanding an explanation for the alleged torture carried out by Indonesian military members of a young Papuan on Sunday night, Dec. 7.

Since Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1963, Papuans have been targeted in all military operations aimed at eradicating Papuan separatism. Consequently, Papuans have been the victims of killings for the past 51 years ever since Papua's integration.

The Paniai shooting was simply the latest example in a long history of violence, demonstrating once again that indigenous Papuans are not treated as citizens, but rather as Indonesia's enemy who must be eliminated.

Despite being Indonesian citizens for more than five decades, they are still seen as outsiders in Indonesia. Their citizenship is not fully recognized yet, at least on the practical day-to-day level.

Instead of respecting them as mutual owners of the Republic of Indonesia, they have been treated as enemies who have been trying to break the Indonesian nation into pieces. Hence the justification that they can be killed at anytime.

Therefore, some Papuans describe themselves as illegal passengers in a ship called the Indonesian Republic. As they are considered stowaways, they are always suspected as troublemakers with the potential power of sinking the Indonesian ship. Consequently, they must always deal with the security forces.

Some other Papuans describe themselves as uninvited guests in a house called Indonesia. Despite recognizing them as the owners of the house, they are treated more as uninvited guests suspected of intending to burn down the whole house. Therefore, they never feel at home in Indonesia for they always deal with Indonesian security forces.

Despite government claims of implementing and trying to improve a welfare approach in Papua, the Paniai shooting clearly reveals that the security approach is still being applied on the ground. Consequently, Papuans are still vulnerable for they can be easily killed, even without reason, at any time and anywhere in the western half of the island of New Guinea.

Therefore Papua remains Indonesia's killing field even under the leadership of democratically elected President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo. More indigenous Papuans are expected to be victims of human rights violations.

It is now a challenge for President Jokowi to transform Papua into a "land of peace". Papua's transformation demands a conflict-prevention policy that can protect the region from the same types of shootings and other forms of recurring violent crime. Such a policy is urgent. The absence of such a policy will perpetuate the status of Papua as a killing field.

It is important to remind the government not to monopolize the whole process of creating a conflict-prevention policy for Papua. There are other stakeholders who have to be included in the discussions as well.

There are nine stakeholders: indigenous Papuans, migrants to Papua, the local governments, the central government, the Indonesian Military (TNI), the Indonesian Police, multinational and domestic private companies exploiting natural resources in Papua, the National Liberation Army of West Papua (TPN PB), the armed wing of the Free Papua movement (OPM) and Papuans in the diaspora.

All of them should be included in discussing a conflict-prevention policy. Each of them should be consulted throughout the process of making of the policy.

The indigenous Papuans, more particularly, should not be excluded from the policy-making. Indeed, their involvement will push the government to change its opinion about them. The government, including its military and police, should not treat the Papuans as foreigners or illegal migrants from other countries. They should not be treated as members of a separatist movement. There must be full recognition of their Indonesian citizenship. Such recognition will help the government to include the Papuans in the process of drafting the conflict-prevention policy.

It is necessary to develop an inclusive mechanism to work out a conflict- prevention policy for Papua. President Jokowi is encouraged to appoint one person, either the Vice President or one of the ministers, to represent the government in leading the process of consultation with all the mentioned stakeholders. The appointed person, in collaboration with some selected figures, could set up an inclusive mechanism that could provide safe spaces for each stakeholder to participate fully in the discussion of the content of the conflict-prevention of policy.

By doing so, they would produce a policy that is jointly discussed and agreed to by all parties concerned. They would, in turn, own the policy resulting from the consultations because they were included in the policy- making process. All the stakeholders, then, would be fully involved in implementing, monitoring and supervising the policy.

[The writer is a lecturer at the Fajar Timur School of Philosophy and Theology and coordinator of the Papua Peace Network in Jayapura.]

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/24/insight-treating-papuans-citizens-instead-targets-indonesia-s-killing-field.html

A tale of two shootings

Jakarta Globe - December 23, 2014

Elaine Pearson – Australia still mourns the death of two hostages killed last week in downtown Sydney after a horrific 16-hour siege only a few blocks from the Human Rights Watch Australia office. Sydney police are in the midst of an exhaustive investigation, covered by local and foreign media, to determine what exactly happened and how to prevent such tragedies.

Just days before, I had been in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, where media reported on five peaceful protesters being shot dead in the remote town of Enarotali in Indonesia's far eastern province of Papua. A sixth protester died two days later from gunshot wounds. This was also a horrific and tragic loss of life, especially since four of the dead were high school students, shot down in their grey-and-white school uniforms. Five of the 17 wounded in the incident were primary school students.

Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that on the morning of Dec. 8, about 800 Papuan young men, women and school children gathered near the local police station and military command. They were demanding an explanation for the alleged beating of a 12-year-old boy the night before by a group of soldiers. The protesters, some carrying ceremonial Papuan hunting bows that have a purely ritual function, expressed their grievance through a traditional Papuan waita dance, which involves shouting, running in circles and mimicking birdsong.

The police ordered the protesters to disperse and then struck them with batons and sticks when they refused to comply. Police and military personnel then fired live ammunition into the crowd. The Papua police chief, Insp. Gen. Yotje Mende, told the media that his officers were only "securing" their station because it was under attack. Police have claimed officers were acting in self-defense and suggested that unknown gunmen on a nearby mountainside had fired the shots killing the protesters.

As accounts from witnesses and the police are at odds, what is needed is for Indonesian authorities to promptly open an independent and impartial investigation. While the Sydney siege was dominated by extensive media coverage, in Papua, no video record of the Enarotali shootings is known to exist.

Enarotali is far from the beaten path, lacking cell phone and Internet coverage. And Papua is effectively closed off to foreign journalists and human rights monitors. Official permission for such access is required, but rarely granted. Earlier this year, the authorities detained two French journalists for more than two months for allegedly violating the terms of their tourist visas by attempting to report on Papua. Security forces in Papua threaten and harass local journalists when they report on "sensitive" topics such as protests.

Papuan activists in Jakarta protesting the Enarotali killings on Dec. 10, Human Rights Day, told me they were upset by newly elected President Joko Widodo's deafening silence on the Papua shootings. Marthen Goo said: "Any peaceful protest is repressed in Papua. We are sick of the violence. And if we complain, we are labeled by officials as sympathizers with OPM [the separatist Free Papua Organization]. We thought things with Jokowi [as the president is popularly known] would be different, but there's no change."

Almost two weeks since the Papua shootings, Joko has failed to speak out about the killings. That casts doubt on his campaign promise to give "special attention" to Papua to help ease the "political tension" there. Instead, the government persists in its near-suffocating security response to Papuan civilians' demands for basic human rights. Over the last three years alone, Human Rights Watch has documented dozens of cases in which police, military, intelligence officers, and prison guards have used excessive force when dealing with Papuans exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and association.

Joko plans to visit Papua by the end of the year. That trip will give him an opportunity to make good on his election promise to address the festering tensions in Papua. The president needs to reset the Indonesian government's failed Papuan polices, and promise an independent and impartial investigation into the killings at Enarotoli and prosecutions for all those responsible for wrongdoing.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott should reach out to Joko in the spirit of two leaders grappling with lives tragically lost. Abbott should tell him to reassure Papuans that their president recognizes their lives matter, and that until all Papuans' rights are fully respected, more grave tragedies are bound to occur.

[Elaine Pearson is Australia director at Human Rights Watch.]

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/opinion/tale-two-shootings/