News & issues

Police stand by as anti-communist thugs attack discussion group

Detik.com - February 6, 2008

Irwan Nugroho, Jakarta – Apparently on account of being accused of being communists, an activity organised by the Joint School Forum (Sekber) was attacked and a number of participants injured yesterday.

"Our activities were just training and consolidation. Sharing ideas about nationalism, for example the rising price of basic goods, the New Order regime [of former President Suharto] becoming stronger and the like", said Sekber committee chairperson Hasan Sofyan when speaking with Detik.com on Wednesday February 5.

According to Hasan – who is better known as Upik – Sekber was formed in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta on May 25, 2002. The organisation has no relationship with the communist movement in Indonesia.

"We were born out of the 2000 generation and know absolutely nothing about the issue of the PKI [Indonesian Communist Party]. Whey was [the discussion] broken up? Our activities already had a permit from police and the local sub-district administration", added Upik.

Upik said that the attack occurred on Tuesday February 5 at around 2pm. At the time, he and around 150 Sekber members from 19 cities across Indonesia were taking part in training at the Mangunan village in the Dlingo sub-district of Bantul regency.

All of a sudden, continue Upik, members of the Yogyakarta Indonesian Anti-Communist Front (FAKI) entered the building and began attacking participants and broke up the meeting, which had been going on since the day before. "We were beaten and trampled on. Documents were also burnt", said Upik.

According to Upik, as a result of the attack, a number of his colleagues suffered injuries and they are currently lying low at a different location. "We will still continue the activities. We will also pursue the case legally", added Upik.

Upik said that a number of Indonesian military personnel and police were on guard at the location but that they took no action whatsoever. "They should protect residents. But security personnel just allowed the attack to go ahead," he added. (irw/gah)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Central Maluku military chief fired over police attack

Jakarta Post - February 6, 2008

M. Azis Tunny, Ambon – A local military chief in Central Maluku was fired Tuesday over last weekend's deadly attack on the local police command complex which claimed three lives and involved his soldiers.

Lt. Col. Dony Hutabarat, the Central Maluku infantry battalion chief, was given his marching orders in an unscheduled ceremony in the Central Maluku capital of Masohi led by local military commander Col. Pratimun.

Hutabarat will be held responsible for the attack that killed two police officers and a soldier on Saturday. Fifty-six police houses were destroyed, as was the home of the Central Maluku police chief, while 11 police cars were destroyed or badly damaged. An extensive trail of destruction was left at the police command complex.

TV footage showed houses leveled to the ground, offices ransacked, burnt-out cars and smoldering offices.

There has been no clear-cut official account of the cause of the incident, which was the latest in a string of similar violent episodes over the past few years involving police and the military across the country.

Police sources said Sunday that the soldiers ran amok following rumors that a soldier had been kidnapped by a police officer who had caught the soldier in bed with the officer's sister.

"His dismissal is part of the punishment for the attack on the Central Maluku police complex on Saturday," Pratimun said.

He said the attack was particularly deplorable because both soldiers and police officers should be role models in resolving differences peacefully.

"Violence does not solve any problem but only brings misery to the public," he said. The situation in Masohi has slowly returned to normal since the police and military made peace in a traditional baku bae ceremony on Monday. Soldiers and police officers were seen hugging each other tearfully.

The ceremony also saw Pattimura Military Commander Maj. Gen. Rasyid Qurnuen Aquary, who oversees security in Maluku, and Maluku Police chief Brig. Gen. M. Guntur Ariyadi symbolically begin to rebuild the houses and buildings destroyed in the attack.

Octavianus Lawalatta, chairman of the Maluku office of the Commission of Human Rights demanded Tuesday firm action against all the soldiers and their leaders involved in the violence.

Lawalatta said that mobilizing military vehicles, as the soldiers had done, required leadership consent with all the legal consequences. "Obviously, the use of military vehicles and weapons in the conflict showed the involvement of some commandant," he said.

He said that the attack had caused trauma to the local residents, especially those who had their houses damaged during the shoot- out.

The Central Maluku Police command complex is located at the center of Masohi, close to civilian residential areas. "Many houses of the local residents were deliberately shot at because many panicky police officers hid in there," Lawalatta said.

Three killed in military-police clash

Jakarta Post - February 3, 2008

M. Azis Tunny, Ambon – A soldier and two police officers were killed and six others injured in a clash between military and police personnel in Masohi, Central Maluku, on Saturday.

Second Pvt. Raimond Philips Tube of the 731 Infantry Battalion in Karabessy as well as 2nd Brig. Michael Wattimena and 2nd Brig. Musri Siolimbona from the Central Maluku police precinct were killed when a group of soldiers from the infantry battalion launched an attack on police officers and property.

The soldiers burnt down the police headquarters, the residence of the police chief and 55 police housing units. There was no detailed information available late Saturday on the condition of the injured victims or their identities.

Witnesses in Masoho said they saw a large number of soldiers walk toward the police headquarters and open fire. They said they also saw burning tires thrown toward the barracks and several burnt police cars.

The soldiers also opened fire at a nearby traditional market, leaving traders and shoppers in a state of fear and confusion, according to the witnesses, who asked to remain anonymous.

Sources at the Masohi military and police headquarters said the clash was triggered by the alleged kidnapping of 2nd Pvt. Eko by police officers. The soldier was said to have been caught with a police officer's sister on Jan. 30.

They said Eko and the police officer, who has not been identified, were involved in a heated argument, after which Eko was reported missing. Eko's colleagues accused the police of abducting him.

Maj. Gen. Rasyid Qurnein, the commander of the Pattimura Military Command overseeing security in Maluku and North Maluku, said he regretted the incident. He said the clash was unnecessary as Eko and the police officer had solved their dispute amicably.

The chief of the Central Maluku police precinct, Adj. Sr. Comr. Prayogo, said police officers did not abduct Eko. "There was no abduction. I have checked the facts with my subordinates and the rumor is not true," he said.

Maluku Governor Karl Albert Ralahalu called on local military and police leaders to wisely and fairly settle the incident.

"While the investigation is underway, both institutions should conduct internal investigations and educate their personnel so as similar incidents can be avoided in the future. However, the law must be enforced in this case and those found guilty will be brought to justice," he said.

Demos, actions, protests...

Protests to cancel debt, support development

Green Left Weekly - February 6, 2008

Sam King – Hundreds of people took protest action in North Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Central Sulewesi, East and West Java and Jogjakarta on January 15-17 to demand cancellation of Indonesia's foreign debt, nationalisation of the mining industries and for strengthening the economy through a nationwide industrialisation.

The actions were organised by over 20 trade unions, student and urban poor organisations in alliance with the People's Democratic Party-Struggle Committee of the Poor (KPRM-PRD). The KPRM-PRD is the result of a minority split from the People's Democratic Party (PRD) – by far the most well known and influential element of the Indonesian left as a result of its crucial leadership role in the movement that overthrew Suharto in 1998.

The split has occurred over tactics relating to elections, which the PRD sees as a way to reach the population with its political program. The PRD is building the National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas), and is advocating Papernas seek electoral alliances with other parties on the basis of agreement on a joint platform.

The KPRM-PRD, on the other hand, is against participation in the 2009 elections if the tough registration laws make participation in its own name and with its own program too difficult, counter- posing to the elections the need to rebuild from the grass roots.

February kicks off with more demonstrations in Jakarta

Detik.com - February 1, 2008

Maryadi, Jakarta – Jakarta will again be decorated by protest actions on the first day of February 2008, so be on the lookout so as to avoid getting caught in traffic.

A number of areas will be besieged by demonstrations. The following are the locations of protest actions based on data from the Metro Jaya regional police Traffic Management Centre for Friday February 1.

At 10am a demonstration will be held by the National Leadership Board of the Urban Poor Union (SRMK) at the State Palace on Jl. Merdeka Barat in Central Jakarta.

Also at 10am, the Legal Aid Institute for Health (LBH Kesehatan) and the Poor Families Health Foundation (LKKM) will be holding a protest at the Department of Health on Jl. HR Rasuna Said in South Jakarta.

At 1pm, there will be an action by the Regional Communication Center of the Campus Propagation Institute Goodwill Forum (FSLDK) for Jakarta, Depok and Bekasi, which will start at the United Nations representative offices on Jl. Jalan Thamrin, then go on to the Horse Statue roundabout and end at the State Palace.

At 4pm, the Jakarta Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) will also be holding a protest action at the State Palace.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Death of a dictator

Resistance mounts for hero status

Jakarta Post - February 6, 2008

Jakarta – Soeharto's alleged past crimes, including allowing the deaths of thousands and other human rights abuses, should effectively deny him hero status, a political discussion heard here Tuesday.

"If a president can't convey his messages clearly or is half- blind, then maybe that person has weaknesses, but if he or she allows the death of hundreds of thousands during his tenure, then that person is a criminal," activist-turned politician Budiman Sudjatmiko said.

Also in attendance were Sidarto Danusubroto, an ex-adjutant to former president Sukarno, historian Asvi Warman Adam and House member Sayuti Asyathri. Sayuti said he couldn't find anything that made him want to call Soeharto a hero.

Soeharto died February 27, 2008. Days later, his death sparked a public debate over whether the former dictator deserved formal hero status. (anw)

Indonesian weekly apologises over Last Supper Suharto cover

Agence France Presse - February 6, 2008

Jakarta – One of Indonesia's top news weeklies apologised Wednesday about the cover of its latest issue, which depicts Suharto and his children in a composition mimicking that of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.

The cover for the 4-10 February edition featured a sketch of former president Suharto, who died last month, taking Jesus Christ's central place at a table surrounded by his three daughters and sons instead of apostles, triggering complaints from Christians.

On page two of Koran Tempo, a daily published by the same outfit as the weekly, a large headline over an apology read, "Tempo Magazine Apologises," with a subheading: "We had no intention of hurting Christians." The magazine edition, with the theme "After his departure", covers the legacy of Suharto, who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for more than three decades until 1998, and his six children, all of them active in various businesses.

Suharto left behind a mixed legacy in Indonesia, bringing economic stability to the sprawling nation but being accused of massive corruption and rights abuses for which he was never brought to justice.

"We had no intention of hurting Christians. We were only inspired by the composition of the Leonardo painting, and not in the concept or context of the event told in the holy bible," Tempo chief editor Toriq Hadad said in the apology.

"For anything unacceptable arising from the publishing of that cover, I, in the name of the Tempo institution, offer an apology," Hadad said. The apology is to also run in the next edition of the weekly, he added.

About a dozen representatives of several Christian groups as well as inter-religious organisations converged on the Tempo office on Tuesday to complain over the cover, Koran Tempo reported.

The Jakarta Post reported that representatives of some Catholic organisations would travel to some predominantly Catholic areas in Indonesia to ensure mass protests were not held following the apology.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation with more than 90 percent of its 234 million people followers of Islam.

Western nations 'had vested interest in Suharto regime'

The National (PNG) - February 5, 2008

John Passant – War criminal Suharto is dead. Look for the tears from his Western supporters. In their hypocrisy they may recognise he was a dictator, but, they will rationalise, he was "our" dictator.

The man was a mass murderer. In the years 1965 and 1966, he and his army supporters seized power and killed up to one million Indonesians. In the name of anti-communism, they killed Chinese people because they were Chinese. This is genocide.

The West was up to its armpits in the blood. The US supplied the names of Communist Party members to Suharto and his cronies. They knew these people would be murdered.

American embassy officials ticked off their names as the army killed them. What did it matter if a few commies were assassinated? Then Australian prime minister then Harold Holt said that "with 500,000 to a million communist sympathisers knocked off, I think it's safe to assume a reorientation has taken place".

And how did Australia described this genocide? A "cleansing process" said the Australian embassy in Jakarta. Ethnic cleansing is a better description.

But the West wanted Suharto in power for its own interests so the mere mass murder of one million people was of no importance to the US or Australia.

And then there is East Timor. During the 23 years of brutal occupation, East Timor's population fell by a third – about 200,000 dead.

Australia (in particular Gough Whitlam) supported this takeover and Malcolm Fraser's government gave de jure recognition to the Indonesian regime in East Timor.

Australia even trained Indonesian army troops, which were used in East Timor (and West Papua) to suppress the indigenous population.

In West Papua from 1969 when the UN supported Act of Free Choice (what Orwellian words!) saw Indonesia installed as the new colonial ruler, the Indonesian army has killed over 100,000 people.

Yet despite all thes murders – murders well known to the West – Suharto has received massive support from the US, Britain and Australia in particular. Indeed, as Iraq and Afghanistan show (once again), when the West thinks it is in their interests to do so they will don the gloves of blood themselves, rather than rely on proxies like Suharto.

Then there is the looting of the Indonesian coffers. Suharto, his family and cronies were corrupt. Transparency International claimed that Suharto and his family filched as much as K104 billion from the country's coffers.

The criminal case against him for this corruption ended because of his ill health. The civil case will be settled out of court. I wonder who presently in power in Indonesia benefits from these decisions.

International courts have been useless in the fight against this mass murderer, a man clearly guilty of war crimes and genocide.

That's because the West did not want him tried. He was their ally. And further, any action could implicate those who aided and abetted Suharto, like the Australian leaders Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard.

Apparently only those criminals who lose the West's support (like Saddam Hussein) suffer some sort of retribution.

Certainly those from the West who support dictators are never charged. And those Western leaders (like Bush, Blair and Howard) who invade other countries and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are never brought to justice.

Individual terrorism is abhorrent. State terrorism, whether by Suharto or his Western backers, is just as abhorrent.

Near the site of the Bali bombing – a bombing in which 88 Australians were murdered – there are mass graves from 1965 and 1966. There are about 88,000 dead there.

Australia's outrage over Bali should extend to those Suharto murdered. It does not.Only when the working people of Indonesia are in power, instead of Suharto's cronies, will Indonesia be free of its murderous past. - (onlineopinion)

[John Passant is a Canberra writer.]

Suharto: A career soldier who commanded a country

Inside Indonesia - January-March, 2008

John Roosa – Taciturn, reserved, reclusive, emotionless, Suharto ruled Indonesia for 32 years as a mystery man, a dictator who presented himself as a faceless, replaceable figure in an apolitical administration. His speeches were dull, forgettable affairs filled with mind-numbing bureaucratese, worn clichis, and pious homilies. There is not a single statement by which he is remembered today. If asked, Indonesians struggle in vain to recall some memorable phrase from him, while even the youth can quote Sukarno, the president he overthrew in 1965. Suharto has left a wordless memory.

Rarely interviewed but frequently photographed, he is remembered by a gesture: a smile. It was how he wished to be known: his 1969 authorised biography was titled The Smiling General. It was a Cheshire cat smile, fixed in place, concealing, not expressing his emotional life, prompting puzzlement about the intrigues and violence that were being conjured up in the mind behind it.

Suharto's parentage is a matter of mystery. In his "autobiography" written by the man most responsible for crafting his public image, G. Dwipayana, Suharto claims he was born to a poor peasant family in the village of Kemusuk near Yogyakarta. A magazine owned by his trusted military intelligence czar claimed in 1974 that his father had been an aristocrat. In what was perhaps a pre-planned response, Suharto invited journalists to his office in the presidential palace to explain his lineage and produce witnesses who could vouch that he was the true salt of the earth. Despite his protestations, his genealogy remains suspect. Among Indonesians it is widely rumored that he was the illegitimate child of a Chinese businessman.

A pleasant career

Whatever his origins and childhood experiences, his adulthood was clearly that of a career soldier. He enlisted in the Dutch military in 1940, an event he mentions in his "autobiography" as "the key to opening a door to a pleasant walk of life". The pleasant life of marching and drilling continued under the Japanese occupation when he became a member of that colonial state's militia. Like all other militiamen, he joined the newly- created Indonesian national army once the Japanese military surrendered in August 1945. There was no question of going back to serve with the Dutch – they had already been stripped of all their power and wealth by the Japanese and had suffered the war years in squalid concentration camps.

Because of his military training, Suharto was given a high rank (lieutenant colonel) in the new Indonesian army that organised itself to fight a guerrilla war against the returning Dutch troops. By 1948, he had become the commander of a brigade of troops stationed in and around Yogyakarta, the capital of the Republic.

The army's guerrilla attacks did little to slow the advance of the Dutch troops. Despite having the homefield advantage, Suharto was caught by surprise on 19 December 1948 when Dutch troops invaded Yogyakarta and captured it the same day without facing any resistance. Inexplicably, all four of Suharto's battalions were outside the city. It was one of the worst setbacks for the Republic: its two highest leaders, Sukarno and Hatta, were captured.

'My politics are at the end of the bayonet'

Suharto had a chance to redeem himself when he led an attack on Yogyakarta in March 1949. The attack inflicted only minor damage to the Dutch troops occupying the city and was repulsed within six hours. Suharto and other army commanders, however, claimed that they had temporarily held the city and proven the might of the Republic's forces to the world. After Suharto took power in 1965 the event was turned into the decisive victory of the war for independence, with a film made about it, Janur Kuning (1979), and a grand monument built in the city (1985).

As a man who served in three different armies within the span of a decade, Suharto wore his political commitments lightly. One of his army colleagues later told a journalist that Suharto said in 1948, "My politics are at the end of the bayonet." No wonder that Sukarno and his left-leaning defence minister introduced political commissars into the army. Like many soldiers trained under Dutch and Japanese officers, Suharto had no experience in the popular nationalist movement that had struggled against imperialism.

Moving up the ranks

After independence was won in 1949, Suharto rose his way up the ranks: colonel, brigadier general, major general. His one setback came in 1959 when he was removed from the command of the Central Java troops for corruption. But the affair was hushed up and he was quickly rehabilitated. He was given command over the operation to seize West Papua from the Dutch in 1962 – an operation that was aborted after a last-minute diplomatic agreement. He was then shifted to Jakarta and given command over the army reserves, Kostrad, in 1963. With an undistinguished record, rudimentary education, and no ability in a foreign language, he was by 1965 a prime candidate for the highest position in the army, serving as the replacement for the army commander, Yani, whenever he traveled abroad.

Suharto had risen to the top of an army that was becoming a kind of parallel government, using its territorial commands, originally designed for defence against foreign invasion, for ruling over civil society. Most of his fellow generals, including the senior-most, A.H. Nasution, were strongly anti-communist and determined to check the rising power of the communist party (PKI) in the early 1960s. To rival the party, they sponsored trade unions, artists' associations, and newspapers. They met with religious organisations and political parties and assured them that the army would use force if need be against the PKI.

Suharto did not clearly associate himself with either side. A former PKI member of the parliament told me that DN Aidit, the head of the party, believed in early 1965 that Suharto was a "democratic" officer because he had supported the ending of the army's martial law powers in 1963. But Suharto was also collaborating with the anti-communists in his covert effort to put the brakes on Sukarno's anti-Malaysia campaign, begun in 1963.

His lucky day

Suharto's fence-sitting ultimately proved to be what him put into power. When the pro-PKI and pro-Sukarno army officers decided to strike against their rival officers, they assumed Suharto would support them. A group of junior officers organised the kidnapping raids of seven army generals on 1 October 1965. Two of the conspirators were good friends of Suharto's and one of them told Suharto beforehand about the plot. The abductors, calling themselves the September 30th Movement, wound up killing six generals, among them the army commander Yani. It was Suharto's lucky day. In Yani's absence he became army commander. The September 30th Movement had not been masterminded by Suharto but it played into his hands perfectly.

As army commander, Suharto immediately began defying presidential orders and implementing the long-standing agenda of the anti- communist officers, which was to reduce Sukarno to a figurehead president, destroy the PKI, and establish a military dictatorship. Suharto's anti-communism did not stem from any deep-seated ideological commitment. If the September 30th Movement had succeeded and the communists had gained more power, one can easily imagine the ever-opportunistic Suharto accommodating himself to the new regime. He was such a nondescript, unremarkable officer that many observers believed in the first weeks of October that he was merely following General Nasution's lead.

The creeping coup d'etat

Sidelining President Sukarno turned out not to be too difficult. The grand old man of Indonesian nationalism, the "extension of the people's tongue", kept voicing protests but did nothing concrete to stop Suharto's guns. He confirmed Suharto as army commander, raised his rank, and gave him emergency powers. The coup de grace of the gradual coup d'itat came in March 1966 when Suharto used a vaguely worded order from Sukarno about "guaranteeing security" as a justification for arresting 15 ministers and dismissing Sukarno's cabinet – as if the president ordered his own overthrow.

The destruction of the PKI – the precondition for imposing a new military-dominated polity – turned out not to be too difficult either. The PKI leadership, in disarray after 1 October, urged its followers not to resist so that President Sukarno could arrange a political resolution to the crisis. But the president had no power over Suharto's army. Working with civilian militias, the army organised one of the worst bloodbaths of the twentieth century, rounding up over one million people and then secretly executing many of them. Detainees disappeared at night. Mass graves holding uncounted corpses lie unmarked all over Sumatra, Java and Bali.

No document exists proving that Suharto ordered any killing. On the rare occasion when he mentioned the killings in later years he blamed them on civilians running amok. Serious investigations into the who, where, when and how questions about the killings reveal that the army was primarily responsible and that Suharto must have at least approved of them if he did not give an explicit oral or written order for them.

Carrots and sticks

In taking power Suharto and his fellow army officers realised that the long-term stability of their rule would depend on their ability to improve living standards. They looked to foreign aid, investment and markets to provide the main stimuli for economic growth. Western capital which had been boycotting Indonesia because of Sukarno's policies found the welcome mat laid out. Suharto personally intervened in late 1965 to stop Sukarno's minister of industries from nationalising the oil sector. With the army's terror campaign against unionists at oil wells, rubber plantations, and factories, Western capital was also given a more docile labor force.

One reason for Suharto's remarkable ability to stay in power for so long lies in his expansion of public sector employment. By the end of his reign, 4.6 million people were on the state payroll, about triple the number in the early 1970s. Millions more were dependents on these salary earners. The security of the monthly paycheck was attractive even if the income was low. Also, some government jobs came with chances to earn more money through corruption. These civil servants and their relatives were the regime's key base of support, voting and campaigning for the government party Golkar in every election. Those not voting for Golkar were denounced for biting the hand that fed them and stood little chance of earning a promotion.

Suharto's habitual response to dissent was, to use today's lexicon, shock and awe. In Papua, he maintained an army of occupation that treated the indigenous population as sub-humans whose loyalty had to be won through violence. For years, the only side of Indonesia that Papuans saw was the army. He was responsible for the tens of thousands of Papuans killed in the counterinsurgency campaign from the late 1960s to 1998. He was also responsible for the war of aggression against East Timor in 1975 and the over 100,000 people there who died because of the warfare in that half-island. He was also responsible for the deaths of thousands of Acehnese who were victims of yet another counterinsurgency campaign (1990-98) designed to terrorise civilians into not supporting the guerrillas, instead of offering the civilians a more positive alternative.

Suharto stubbornly pursued the same strategy even when it was proving to be counterproductive, when the terror inflicted in Papua, East Timor and Aceh was generating more widespread resistance. Only after Suharto's downfall have Indonesian politicians had the chance to pursue wiser, more humane diplomatic and political resolutions to these wars: President Habibie allowed a UN-administered referendum in East Timor in 1999 and President Yudhoyono concluded a peace treaty with the Acehnese nationalists in 2005.

The grand Ponzi scheme collapses

In evaluating Suharto's rule, the so-called "balanced" approach of many Western scholars has been to criticise Suharto for human rights violations but to praise his economic performance. Those impressed by the annual growth rates of six percent are like gullible investors in a Ponzi scheme convinced that the high returns are irrefutable evidence of success. The economic growth of the Suharto years was largely accomplished by wildly selling off the country's natural resources. It was a predatory, unsustainable type of growth. The leading sectors were oil and timber. Both were terribly mismanaged because of the corruption. Today Indonesia is an net oil importer and its forests are rapidly disappearing, cut down by loggers or burned up by palm oil plantation owners. The revenues from all those exports were not reinvested in other sectors; they disappeared into the personal bank accounts of the Suharto family, their cronies (such as Bob Hasan), and state officials.

After three decades of economic growth ala Suharto, the Indonesian government was left heavily in debt and the economy left without a domestically-financed industrial base. It is fitting that Suharto, whose minions lauded him as "the father of development," passed away in the hospital owned by the state oil company (Pertamina) that his family and cronies (such as Ibnu Sutowo) milked with abandon.

Suharto's regime lived by foreign capital and it died by foreign capital. The liberalisation of the financial sector that the US pushed Indonesia to adopt in the early 1990s resulted in much greater vulnerability to sudden international shifts in the capital flows. Money flooded in to Suharto's caste of kleptocrats and their phony banks and then suddenly flooded out. The grand Ponzi scheme collapsed with the Asian economic crisis of 1997. The only legitimacy that Suharto had enjoyed was his apparent ability to engineer economic growth. Once that ended the usually compliant middle-class turned on him, unwilling to tolerate his corruption, his greedy children and his obscenely wealthy cronies. The spontaneously formed movement for "reformasi" declared its main enemy to be KKN: Korupsi, Kolusi, and Nepotisme. The Suharto family's own "I Love the Rupiah" campaign, coming from those who held the most dollars, did not quite have the same cachet.

The family's extensive stable of paranormals could not save them, neither could their obsequious army generals, not even Lieutenant General Prabowo, Suharto's son-in-law who commanded elite troops in Jakarta and was always flush with money from his brother who owned the country's one steel mill. Suharto resigned on 21 May as Jakarta was still smouldering from the mysterious riots in which stores owned by Indonesian-Chinese were torched.

Mr Minus

Perhaps the best that can be said of Suharto's 32 year reign is that it could have been worse. He did not opt for the strategy of the Burmese generals and close off the country. Dependent upon foreign capital, he was vulnerable to international pressure. The release of tens of thousands of political prisoners in the late 1970s was largely due to pressure from outside the country. He did not opt to legitimate himself through religion and impose Islamic law. The Indonesian state remained largely secular. He did not promote a cult of personality around himself. When faced with mass protests in 1998, he did not opt to stay in power at all costs.

The late great Indonesian writer, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, a political prisoner of Suharto's for 14 years, once wrote that he could not bring himself to write about the Suharto regime. While he wrote many historical novels about pre-colonial Java and the Indonesian nationalist movement, he thought nothing interesting could be said about the man responsible for imprisoning him and banning his books. For him, Suharto was a negativity, what he called a "minus x", a reversion back to Java's colonial-era aristocrats who bullied their subjects for the benefit of European business interests, yet prided themselves of their great cosmic powers, and remained narrow-minded and indifferent to the science and arts of the Europe that had conquered them. No doubt some will remember Suharto for something positive but as Indonesia struggles to overcome his terrible legacies one wonders whether anyone will be able to consider his title "father of development" as anything other than a cruel joke.

[John Roosa (jroosa@interchange.ubc.ca) is a member of Inside Indonesia's editorial team, and the author of Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'Itat in Indonesia (2006).]

Why Suharto was anti-Indonesian

Max Lane - February 4, 2008

Most of the severest of Suharto'c critics, inside and outside of Indonesia, rightly concentrate of the gross violations of human rights during his 33 years of power. The worst of these were the mass murders of 1965 and the military occupation of East Timor.

We know from the public statements of generals such as Kemal Idris that he was given orders to "clean-up the PKI". We know from the research of historian Bonnie Tryanna, that Suharto's attorney General, Ali Said, sent a circular around the country clarifying that no action was to be taken against anybody killing those supposedly sympathetic with the 30th September Movement. We know the mass murders were state policy, under Suharto. And there are many other examples of these very, bloody violations.

But there was another victim of Suharto's rule: the Indonesian nation. Suharto was an anti-Indonesian. There are a number of aspects to this.

Perhaps the most discussed among political economists was his surrender of national sovereignty over the Indonesian economy. He surrendered the whole post-1965 restructuring of the Indonesian economy to an assembly of multinational corporation CEOs who met in Switzerland in 1967. As a result, Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, has never industrialized. This is despite receiving tens of billions of dollars from the export of oil, gas and timber and tens of billions more in aid and loans from the West. Suharto was happy for Indonesia to be minor outsource center for garment, footwear and other light manufacturing assembly. No heavy industry, no engineering industry or other middle level industry was ever developed.

A report by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in 2000 listed Indonesia near the bottom of the list of countries with any kind of diversification or depth of industrialization. In a damning assessment of what amounted to an abandonment of any attempt to industrialise, UNIDO stated:

"The pattern of Indonesian industrialization differed from that of other countries... Between 1985 and 1997, the contribution of higher technology industries to manufacturing value-added did not increase,.. virtually all countries in the region and elsewhere have maintained the share of medium-technology industries in their manufacturing output."

This was before the Asian financial crisis. Only low technology manufacturing expanded – the "coolie" based industries. While Sukarno had fought against Indonesia becoming "a nation of coolies, and a coolie among nations", Suharto turned Indonesia precisely into a coolie nation. A massive two thirds of the workforce – 60 million plus – accounted for only 5-6% of total manufacturing value added!

Meanwhile billions of dollars have left and are leaving the country in the form of interest on debt repayments and profit repatriation. Now, every time an Indonesian worker bites into a piece of tempe or tahu, money leaves the country.

But Suharto's anti-Indonesianness goes beyond his sale of his country and people as coolies. Suharto also set in motion policies that have and are still destroying the base of Indonesian national culture.

Indonesia, like all great nations, was a creation of a great revolution that begun in the field of ideas with Kartini and spread into mobilisational politics of Tirto Adhisuryo, the Sarekat Islam, the Indonesian Communist Party and finally Soekarno and the Indonesian National Party. Mobilisation and activity on the streets and the workplaces and in the villages began the creation of a new national culture, an Indonesian culture. The new culture was the enemy of passivity, the key characteristic of Javanese feudal culture, and a force for productiveness and creativity. In Indonesia (the Netherlands Indies then) the biggest, modern mass organization in the world at the time had come into existence, Sarekat Islam.

An explosion of writing, fiction and non-fiction accompanied these mobilising organizations, with their protests, strikes and boycotts. Soekarno was at the forefront, but there were many others. Novels, short stories, poems and political writings mushroomed everywhere. "Wild schools" sprung up to help spread the new ideas and writings to the younger generation. The cultural explosion continued after Independence. All the political parties had cultural organizations taking their ides down to the villages. The left wing Peoples Cultural Institute (LEKRA) and National Cultural Institute (LKN) were the biggest.

This cultural explosion ended under Suharto. Worse than that, all the gains of Indonesian culture from the previous 60 years was abandoned. For thirty years and several generations now the novels, plays and poems of the revolution that created Indonesia have not been taught in Indonesian schools. Tens of millions of children have gone through their schooling with almost no exposure to the ideas upon which their country was based. The writings of Soekarno are not studied, nor even those of his more conservative rival Mohammed Hatta. The great writings of Chairil Anwar, Sitor Situmorang and Pramoedya Ananta Toer are not any list of compulsory reading. While every year, there is a holiday to celebrate the birth of Indonesia's first great, liberation thinker, Kartini, nobody reads her writings at school. They are not studied.

On top of this, the teaching of history in the schools was de facto put under the control of the Indonesian Armed Forces History Centre. The people's own history was no longer theirs; it became a history of military heroes. Not even in senior high school did students read any primary sources from their history. History text books which diverge from official history are banned and thrown onto public bonfires.

Culture and history were redefined. Culture was surrendered to the neo-colonial economy. The national film industry collapsed (while Soeharto's family monopolised cinemas). There is only one national book distribution company for a country of 250 million. The country's greatest living poet, Sitor Situmorang was under house arrest. The greatest dramatist, Rendra, was in and out of jail. The country's greatest novelist was in gaol and even when released after 14 years had his books banned.

Suharto surrendered the economy to become the economy of a coolie nation, no matter how many Indonesian millionaires now own apartments in Singapore. He suppressed the national history, and abandoned the nation's cultural achievements during its revolution and nation formation process up until 1965. When Sukarno stood before tens of thousands of workers and peasants and the US ambassador in 1962 and said "go to hell with your aid", he did so standing upon a cultural legacy of pride in the achievement of freedom through struggle, with a self-confidence summed up in a poem of the revolution by Indonesia's great poet of the 1940s, Chairil Anwar. In "Me", he wrote:

Though bullets should pierce my skin
I shall still strike and march forth
Wounds and poison shall I take aflee
Aflee 'Til the pain and pang should disappear
And I should care even less
I want to live for another thousand years

But Suharto started killing that spirit in 1965, 20 years after Anwar wrote it. Yes, the flags should fly at half-mast, but not for Suharto.

Keating, Carlton and Sheridan - The Jakarta Lobby

Martin Wesley-Smith - February 2, 2008

In an article – The nation builder – in today's Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Keating attempts to justify his attendance at Suharto's funeral last week.

Suharto's "judgment, goodwill and good sense" is to be greatly admired: "Had (his) New Order government not displaced the Soekarno government and the massive PKI communist party, the postwar history of Australia would have been completely different."

The word "displaced" is Keating's euphemism for the murder of up to a million – possibly many more – PKI members and suspected sympathisers in 1966. Such good judgement, goodwill and good sense! Keating blames "East Timor and the wilful reporting of Indonesian affairs in Australia by the Australian media", particularly the Fairfax press and the ABC, for Australians regarding Indonesia so suspiciously, especially over the past quarter-century. He believes that "the misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life... can be attributed to the 'get square' policy of the media in Australia for the deaths of the Balibo Five – the five Australian-based journalists who were encouraged to report from a war zone by their irresponsible proprietors and who were shot and killed by the Indonesian military in East Timor."

Mr Keating:

[a] a democracy cannot function properly if its citizens, and government, are denied the truth. The Balibo Five were in East Timor to tell the truth about Indonesia 's covert invasion. It wasn't their bosses who were irresponsible, it was Whitlam's Labor government for not putting pressure on Indonesia not to invade.

[b] I don't believe that there was ever a "misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life". The media were simply asking for the truth behind the Balibo murders – but successive governments, including yours, refused to allow this to come out. What were journalists, whose colleagues were shot, to do? Simply say "Right-oh, then, let's drop the matter"? What if one of your children had been murdered in similar circumstances? Would you have argued vehemently that Australia's national interest – its "strategic stability" – was more important than your child's life?

[c] Do you also believe, as you appear to be saying, that Australia's national interest was more important than the deaths of 200,000 or more East Timorese people whose country Suharto illegally invaded with great brutality? Those deaths, incidently, apparently came from Suharto's "goodwill towards neighbouring states".

Keating relies on the old communism bogey to justify Suharto's invasion. In fact a few naive young Timorese leaders romantically wore berets and called each other "comrade" – but that was enough to justify wholesale slaughter, the theft of Timorese property, land and resources, and, now, a basket case for a neighbour that will cost Australia dearly in future. We're told that allegations of Suharto's corruption are "errant nonsense". His kids might have been "rapacious", but this was because he, unfortunately, was not a disciplined father. He distrusted the political classes, not wanting to hand over to them because, in part, he feared they were corrupt! Finally, what would we know? Keating saw thousands of Indonesia n citizens – survivors – mourning the death of their former leader. Therefore he must have been a good guy. Keating "felt honoured... to have known him" – to have known a man with the blood of millions of innocent people on his hands.

I despair.

Columnist Mike Carlton, in the same newspaper, quotes Keating as saying that you deal with the Indonesia you are given, not the Indonesia you would like to see. I don't have a problem with that. But when you're a private citizen and no longer in government, and you don't have to observe official protocol, then you don't, if you have any shred of decency, get into bed with a vicious murderer.

Carlton: "Despite the blood-letting – the purge of the communists, the occupation of East Timor – and beyond the monstrous kleptocracy, the plain truth is that Keating was right, (Suharto's) New Order government was indeed a huge plus for Australia." Out the window goes principle – except for the one that says that the end justifies the means. Out goes any pretence of morality. Out go "Australian values", including the quaint one that says fair go, cobbers, you really shouldn't kill people. But if it's good for Australia, apparently anything goes, including the cold-blooded murder of Australian citizens.

Finally, let us turn, as we so often do, to The Australian's Greg Sheridan for elucidation and understanding:

"Indonesia's Suharto was an authentic giant of Asia, a nation- builder, a dictator, a changer of history. He was also, for Australia, the most important and beneficial Asian leader in the entire period after World War II..."

There's an unlikely band of brothers for you: Keating, Carlton and Sheridan. They're part of the Jakarta Lobby, whose policy on East Timor proved so disastrous for that country and, ultimately, for Indonesia and Australia. Not only do they refuse to admit they might have got it wrong, they don't seem at all fussed about the millions of deaths ordered by their hero (including genocide in West Papua) or his legacies, which include paralysing corruption, massive environmental destruction, a culture of greed, and an army that is out of control.

US must atone for aiding Suharto

Newsday.com - February 3, 2008

Joseph Nevins – The death of Suharto, the strongman who ruled Indonesia for more than three decades, is cause for reflection in the United States, particularly as Americans choose our next president and wrestle with the question of our nation's proper role in the world.

Countless atrocities marked Suharto's rule, and his legacy scars Indonesia's politics as well as the social fabric of neighboring East Timor, which his regime violently annexed. But the United States backed those crimes and, like Indonesia, has never taken responsibility – which has made it that much easier for the Bush administration to strengthen ties with the country's brutal military under the guise of fighting terrorism.

In late 1965, as part of a power grab from his predecessor, Sukarno, Gen. Suharto and his army organized and carried out what the CIA described as "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century." Over several months, they slaughtered hundreds of thousands of members of the Indonesian Communist Party, a legal entity, and of loosely affiliated organizations such as women's groups and labor unions. A decade later, Suharto's military invaded neighboring East Timor. The ensuing war and almost 24- year occupation cost many tens of thousands East Timorese lives.

The US embassy in Indonesia encouraged and lauded the military's actions in the 1965-66 killings' early stages. It supplied radio equipment and small arms, and gave the army thousands of names of Communist Party members. In the case of the Dec. 7, 1975, East Timor invasion, President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger approved the aggression and the use of American weaponry while meeting with Suharto the previous day in Jakarta. About 14 hours after they left, Indonesian forces attacked.

Democratic and Republican administrations alike provided billions of dollars in military weaponry and training and economic aid, as well as diplomatic cover, to Jakarta over Suharto's 32-year reign.

That Suharto, who a Clinton administration official characterized in 1995 as "our kind of guy," proved so welcoming of Western investors helps to explicate the bipartisan largesse. A State Department official explained in early 1976, for example, why Washington was condoning Jakarta's illegal invasion of East Timor. Indonesia, he said, is "a nation we do a lot of business with." Richard Nixon once characterized the country rich in resources ranging from oil to rubber to gold as "the greatest prize in the South-East Asian area."

Suharto was forced from power in May 1998. Today's Indonesia, which has the fourth largest population and most Muslims in the world, is now much more open and democratic. Yet, Suharto's legacy deforms the society, especially in terms of the military, which still looms large over the country's political system. As such, there has been no thorough investigation of, nor any accountability among, military or political leaders for any of the countless Suharto-era massacres.

This impunity is a source of continuing worry for civil society and restless outlying regions, as well as now-independent East Timor.

In the United States, Washington's role in Indonesia's killing fields of 1965-66 is effectively forgotten. And the record of American complicity in atrocities in East Timor has been largely ignored – despite calls by that country's official truth commission that the United States apologize and pay reparations.

It's a short leap from this history to the tendency of all too many of our elected leaders to prefer bullying over negotiation, cooperation and regard for established international norms. Among the results: ongoing support for Morocco's illegal occupation of the Western Sahara, the disastrous invasion of Iraq and US rejection of international law – UN Security Council resolutions and the Geneva Conventions, for example – as the basis for a just resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Suharto's death, in addition to being an opportunity for self- reflection in the United States, is an occasion for atonement and positive change. This should entail full accountability for US involvement in Suharto's crimes, and a commitment to alter our ways overseas.

Congress and the next president ought to consider these meaningful steps as ways of reconciling with those victimized by the US-Indonesia alliance, and also contributing to a less violent, more just world – at home and abroad.

[Joseph Nevins, an associate professor of geography at Vassar College, is the author of "A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor" and the forthcoming "Dying to Live: A Story of US Immigration.]

Public debates hero title for Soeharto

Jakarta Post - February 2, 2008

Apriadi Gunawan and Nana Rukmana, Medan/Cirebon – Mixed reactions have greeted a proposal to bestow national hero status upon controversial former president Soeharto.

In Medan, North Sumatra, an alliance of 24 non-governmental organizations, grouped under the Impeach Soeharto People's Committee, staged a massive rally Thursday at the provincial legislative council building in a show of opposition to the proposal.

The protesters said Soeharto, the country's second president who passed away on Jan. 27, did not deserve national hero status because of his alleged involvement in human rights violations during his rule.

They pointed to the killings in 1984 of Muslim protesters by soldiers in the Tanjung Priok area of Jakarta, as well as military operations in Aceh and Papua during Soeharto's 32-year reign.

One protester, Jiman Karo-Karo, 76, said it was inappropriate to honor Soeharto with hero status because of the allegations that continue to cast a cloud over his legacy. "It's not proper to grant the title... he was a human rights criminal," Jiman told protesters.

He said he was illegally jailed for 20 years during Soeharto's rule after being accused of subversion. Jiman said he was never tried and found guilty in a court of law, but was still jailed.

"To be frank, I've never forgiven Soeharto until now, even though he is already dead," he said. He said Soeharto should have been put to trial before he died so he could account for his political sins against the people.

Protest coordinator Johan said the alliance of NGOs was also demanding that the government immediately seize Soeharto's assets, as well as the assets of his family and cronies.

A council member from the Golkar Party who met with the protesters, Amas Muda Siregar, said giving official national hero status to Soeharto was still only a proposal that would have to be further discussed.

Although the Golkar Party is closely associated with Soeharto and his reign, Amas said the party respected the views of those opposed to the proposal. "We will forward the views to the central government," said Amas.

Extensive, and mostly positive TV coverage of Soeharto's death and his rule encouraged some people to call for the former president to be given official national hero status.

In Cirebon, West Java, residents are split over the proposal. Some people said they would support the idea, but only if all the legal issues still surrounding Soeharto were first resolved.

Dedi, an employee at a gas station in Cirebon, said Wednesday he did not care whatever was decided.

"What's the use of worrying about the issue. The leaders in Jakarta would never hear my voice. The issue has snowballed because people in Jakarta have made a fuss about it. I don't care whether Soeharto is given a title or not, because it won't have any impact on my life," he said.

A farmer in Kapetakan district in Cirebon regency, Yayat Supriyatna, 42, said he would like to see Soeharto honored because the former president cared about farmers when he was in office. "Compared to the other presidents, Pak Harto was the most caring toward farmers," said Yayat.

He said farmers never had trouble obtaining fertilizer when Soeharto was president. "Not like now when farmers often have difficulty getting fertilizer and seeds. They were always available during Pak Harto's time," he said.

An assistant lecturer at 17th August University in Cirebon, Lukman, 27, is conflicted over the issue. He agreed that Soeharto had done a lot for the country and people, but said there were also the unresolved human rights cases and graft charges surrounding the former president.

"The idea should be postponed until all legal matters implicating Soeharto and his family are settled," said Lukman.

Suharto: The nation builder

Sydney Morning Herald - February 2, 2008

Paul Keating – The death of Soeharto, the former president of Indonesia, gives all Australians a chance to assess the value of his life and the relationship between Indonesia and Australia.

More than any figure in the post-Second World War period, including any American president, Soeharto, by his judgment, goodwill and good sense, had the greatest positive impact on Australia's strategic environment and, hence, on its history. In the 40 years since he came to power in 1965, Indonesia has been the ballast in South-East Asian stability and the foundation stone upon which ASEAN was built.

Soeharto took a nation of 120 million people, racked by political turmoil and poverty, from near-disintegration to the orderly, ordered and prosperous state that it is today.

In 1965, countries such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe were in the same position as Indonesia then. Today, those countries are economic and social wrecks. By contrast, Indonesia is a model of harmony, cohesion and progress. And the principal reason for that is Soeharto.

We can only imagine what Australia's strategic position would be like if Indonesia's 230 million people degenerated into a fractured, lawless state reminiscent of Nigeria or Zimbabwe.

For the past 40 years, we have been spending roughly 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence – about $20 billion a year in today's dollars. The figure would be more like seven to eight times that, about $150 billion today, if Indonesia had become a fractured, politically stricken state.

Had Soeharto's New Order government not displaced the Soekarno government and the massive PKI communist party, the postwar history of Australia would have been completely different. A communist-dominated Indonesia would have destabilised Australia and all of South-East Asia.

So why have Australians regarded Indonesia so suspiciously, especially over the past quarter-century, when it is evident that Indonesia has been at the fulcrum of our strategic stability?

Unfortunately, I think the answer is East Timor and the wilful reporting of Indonesian affairs in Australia by the Australian media. That media have, in the main, been the Fairfax press and the ABC. Most particularly The Sydney Morning Herald and to a lesser extent The Age.

This rancour, and the misrepresentation of the true state of Indonesian social and economic life, can be attributed to the "get square" policy of the media in Australia for the deaths of the Balibo Five – the five Australian-based journalists who were encouraged to report from a war zone by their irresponsible proprietors and who were shot and killed by the Indonesian military in East Timor.

This event was sheeted back to Soeharto by journalists of the broadsheet press. From that moment, in their eyes, Soeharto became a cruel and intolerant repressor whose life's work in saving Indonesia from destruction was to be viewed only through the prism of East Timor.

Rarely did journalists mention that Soeharto was president for almost 10 years before he did anything about East Timor. He was happy to leave the poverty-stricken and neglected enclave in his archipelago to Portugal, with its 300-year history of hopeless colonisation.

Soeharto had enough trouble dragging Indonesia from poverty without needing to tack on another backward province.

But in mid-1975, communist-allied military officers took control in Portugal and its colonies abroad were taken over by avowedly Marxist regimes. In East Timor, a leftist group calling itself the Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of East Timor, or Fretilin, staged a coup igniting a civil war.

When Fretilin overran the colony by force, Soeharto's government became alarmed. This happened at the height of the Cold War. Saigon had fallen in April of that year. Fretilin appealed to China and Vietnam for help. Fearing a "Cuba on his doorstep", Soeharto reluctantly decided on military intervention. In his 33 years as leader, he embarked upon no other "foreign" exploit. And he would not have bothered with Timor, had Fretilin not made the going too rough.

Indeed, Jose Ramos-Horta told the Herald in 1996 that "the immaturity, irresponsibility and bad judgment of the East Timorese provoked Indonesia into doing what it did". Xanana Gusmao also told anyone who would listen that it had been a "bad mistake" for Fretilin to present itself as a "Marxist" outfit in 1975.

But none of this stopped a phalanx of Australian journalists, mostly from the Fairfax stable and the ABC's Four Corners, from reporting Indonesian affairs from that time such that Australians could only view the great economic transformation of Indonesia and the alleviation of its poverty and its tolerance primarily through the warped and shattered prism of East Timor. The Herald even editorialised in favour of an Australian invasion of East Timor, then Indonesian territory. That is, right up front about it, the Herald urged the Australian government to invade Indonesia.

So rabid has Fairfax been about Indonesia and so recreant of Australia's national interest has it been.

Even as late as this week, the Herald claimed the achievements of Soeharto's New Order government "were built on sand", nominating Indonesia reeling from crisis to crisis after 1998, when the Herald knows that Soeharto did precisely the right thing in calling the International Monetary Fund in to help and that the IMF, operating under US Treasury prescriptions, kicked the country and Soeharto to pieces.

The decline in Indonesia, after 30 years of 7 per cent compound growth under Soeharto, had little to do with Soeharto and everything to do with the Asian financial crisis and the short- sighted and ill-informed IMF.

But more than that, Australian journalists knew but failed to effectively communicate that not only did Soeharto hold his country together, he insisted that Indonesia be a secular state; that is, a Muslim country but not an Islamic or fundamentalist one. In other words, not an Iran.

Wouldn't you imagine that such an issue would be matter of high and primary importance to communicate to the Australian community? That on our doorstep there is a secular Indonesian state and not a religious one, run by Islamic law. And wouldn't you, in all reasonableness, give Soeharto full marks for keeping that vast archipelago as a civil society unrepressed by fundamentalism?

Look what happened to us in Bali at the hands of a handful, literally a handful, of Islamic fundamentalists. Imagine the turmoil for Australia if the whole 230 million of Indonesia had a fundamentalist objection to us. But this jaded bunch of Australian journalists could only report how Soeharto was corrupt because his son Tommy, might have elbowed his way into some carried equity with an American telephone company or his daughter something with a road builder. True as those generalisations might have been, in terms of the weight of Australia's interests, the deeds of Soeharto's public life massively outweigh anything in his private affairs.

I got to know Soeharto quite well. He was clever and utterly decisive and had a kind view of Australia. The peace and order of his country, its religious and ethnic tolerance and the peace and the order of South-East Asia came from his goodwill towards neighbouring states and from his wisdom. He was self-effacing and shy to a fault. One had to tease him out of himself to get him going, but once got going, his intellectualism took over.

Soeharto lived in what we would call in Australia a rather old and shabby McMansion in Jakarta. I have been there on a number of occasions. He lived as simply as anyone of his high standing could live.

But Time magazine claimed that Soeharto had stashed away $30 billion-odd, as if those ning-nongs would know, presumably so he could race off to live it up in Miami or the Bahamas. Errant nonsense. Soeharto was an Indonesian who was always going to remain an Indonesian. He lived a simple life and could never have changed that.

I do not doubt that his rapacious family had the better of him and got away with lumps of capital they had not earned. Soeharto was a disciplined leader, but not a disciplined father. But to compare him with the likes of Marcos is nothing short of dastardly.

The descriptions of Soeharto as a brutal dictator living a corrupt high life at the expense of his people and running an expansionist military regime are untrue. Even Soeharto's annexation of East Timor was not expansionist. It had everything to do with national security and nothing to do with territory.

Like all leaders, Soeharto had his failings. His greatest failing was to underestimate the nature of the society he had nurtured. As his economic stewardship led to food sufficiency, education, health and declines in infant mortality, so those changes gave rise to a middle class as incomes rose. Soeharto should have let political representation grow as incomes grew. But he distrusted the political classes. He believed they would not put the national interest first, had no administrative ability and were utterly indecisive, if not corrupt. He told me this on a number of occasions. He would not let the reins go. Partly because he did not want to lose them, partly because he really had no one to give them to.

Soeharto's problem was he had too little faith in his own people, the very people he cared for most. Whatever political transition he may have wished to have had, it all blew up on him with the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. He had no democratic transition in place and, in the economic chaos, political forces wanted him to go.

In January 1998, nearly two years after I had left the prime ministership of Australia, I flew to Jakarta on my own initiative and at my own expense to see him the day he signed the IMF agreement with the fund's managing director, Michel Camdessus.

The IMF had tragically overplayed its hand the previous November and Soeharto was giving it a chance to dig itself out of a hole. He had a small window of opportunity. I thought that as a former head of government who was on friendly terms with him, I at least owed him advice of a kind I knew he would never get inside Indonesia: to take the opportunity of the IMF interregnum to say that he, Soeharto, would contest the next election but that he would not complete the term. That he would stay long enough to see the IMF reforms into place and then hand the presidency over to his vice-president.

Had he taken this advice, the process of political transformation would have been completely orderly. And a new administration could have set up the organs of democracy.

I discussed this issue with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, both of whom had Soeharto's and Indonesia's best interests at heart. Both gentlemen believed that I was in a better position to broach this subject with Soeharto than either of them. For two hours I had the president in his house with his state secretary, Moerdiano, and his interpreter Widodo. Fifteen minutes into the conversation, when I was making the case for him to step down, he stopped Widodo's translation and took my advice directly, in English. Moerdiano said to me in an aside at the door, "I think you have got him".

Soeharto followed me to the door, put his arms around my shoulders and said "God bless you" as I left. As it turned out, I didn't quite have him, and he hung on thinking he could slip through one more time.

But the crisis and the behaviour of the IMF and the US Treasury had marooned him. Completely determined to act constitutionally, he turned over his singular power, at his own initiative, to his vice-president to avoid any upheaval of the kind Indonesia had experienced during earlier transitions. The new president, B.J. Habibie, then, by all due process, picked up the reins of government to deal with the continuing financial reconstruction and the long process of democratisation.

When the acting Foreign Minister, Robert McClelland, and I arrived in Indonesia for Soeharto's funeral last Monday, we drove the 30-odd kilometres from the airport at Solo to the mausoleum where he would be buried alongside his wife. For not one metre of those 30-odd kilometres, was there no person present. In some places they were six and eight deep, all holding their baskets of petals to throw at his cortege. They all knew they were burying the builder of their society and all felt the moment.

How many Australian leaders would have a million or so people to grieve for them beside the roadway? Soeharto's funeral was a tribute to what his life truly meant. I felt honoured to have been there but more than that, to have known him.

[Paul Keating was prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996]

The Australian Labor Party and Indonesia's dictator Suharto

World Socialist Website - January 31, 2008

Peter Symonds – Anyone who harbours any illusion that the current Labor government in Canberra will establish a more enlightened Australian foreign policy should examine the reaction this week of Labor ministers, past and present, to the death of former Indonesian military dictator Suharto.

Former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating made a point of flying to Indonesia at short notice to pay his last respects to the man whose 1965-66 coup was responsible for the deaths of at least half a million workers and peasants. In comments to the Australian, Keating, who of all the Labor leaders forged the most intimate ties with Suharto, described him as a close friend and key strategic ally, brushing aside his crimes as "missing the point".

Keating's presence at the funeral was not a personal or spur of the moment decision. The Rudd government's delegation included Attorney General Robert McClelland, standing in for the Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, and the Australian ambassador to Indonesia, Bill Farmer. Keating's apologetics are part and parcel of the longstanding relationship that successive Australian governments, Labor and Liberal, had with the Suharto dictatorship for more than three decades.

An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald on January 15, when it appeared that Suharto's death was imminent, urged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to attend the funeral. After noting Rudd's presence would be seen "as conferring some kind of forgiveness for the dark side of Suharto's rise to power", the newspaper elaborated on the critical role played by Suharto for Australian interests and called on Rudd to go – "as a mark of respect for the office [of president] and as a sign of our involvement with Indonesia."

"[Not to attend] would also reek of hypocrisy", the Herald declared. "From [Liberal prime minister] Harold Holt telling a New York audience approvingly about how Suharto's army was 'knocking off' the communists, to favourable maritime boundary agreements, to the Indonesian support for Australian positions in Association of South-East Asian Nations [ASEAN] and Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation [APEC] forums, to Jakarta's tacit support for the reach of US power through its archipelago, Australian governments consistently saw Suharto's rule as a strategic plus for the country. We encouraged one of his worst adventures – the annexation of Portuguese Timor-when arguably we could have talked him out of it. Had the Asian financial crisis not brought his rule to an involuntary end in May 1998, Australian prime ministers would have been courting Suharto for many more years."

In the end, Rudd, like other world leaders, decided to maintain a discrete distance from Suharto, preferring to offer "our condolences on the passing of former Indonesian President Suharto" from afar, rather than joining Keating in Indonesia. But as the Herald intimated, it would have been entirely appropriate for Rudd to attend the funeral to express Canberra's gratitude for services rendered, particularly as the Labor Party was intimately involved in cementing the relationship and directly encouraged the 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor that led to the deaths of 200,000 people.

In 1965, Canberra was just as determined as Washington to remove the Indonesian regime of President Sukarno, whose anti- imperialist posturing and relations with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was viewed as a danger to Western interests. Australian diplomats and intelligence officers in Jakarta at the time of the Suharto coup coordinated closely with their American counterparts. Former US ambassador to Australia Ed Clark praised Australia for helping the US "to take a hundred million people away from the communists, by doing everything they could to help overthrow the Sukarno government".

On becoming opposition Labor leader in 1967, Gough Whitlam quickly sanctioned the slaughter. If the PKI had succeeded in taking power 18 months earlier, he said, "we would have had a country of 100 million dominated by communists on our border. We can only imagine the additional and crippling sums we would now be spending on defence."

The Suharto regime would remain central to Labor's strategic orientation when it won office in 1972. One of Whitlam's first acts as prime minister was to welcome Suharto on his first visit to Australia-a step that provoked not a ripple of protest or criticism from Labor's "lefts" or the trade union leaders.

The Labor government, in league with Ford administration in the US, was central in encouraging Suharto to invade the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975. Before being ousted from office in late 1975, Whitlam held two summits with the Indonesian dictator to offer his assurances that Canberra would turn a blind eye to any intervention. A major factor in Australia's calculations was the discovery of oil and gas in the Timor Sea. Whitlam's ambassador to Jakarta, Richard Woolcott, advised in a diplomatic cable to Canberra, that a seabed treaty "could be more readily negotiated with Indonesia than with Portugal or independent Portuguese Timor".

The Labor government of Prime Minister Bob Hawke, which came to office in 1983, secured the lion's share of the energy reserves through the 1989 Timor Gap treaty with the Suharto junta. In return, Australia became the only Western country to formally recognise Indonesia's annexation of East Timor. Hawke's first foreign minister Bill Hayden had ensured the resumption of talks by removing the demand for East Timorese independence from the Labor Party platform. His successor Gareth Evans and Indonesia's foreign minister Ali Alitas toasted the final signing of the treaty with champagne onboard an Australian aircraft flying over Timor.

Labor trenchantly defended its dealings with the Suharto regime, deliberately playing down the military's atrocities in East Timor and other areas. In response to the widely publicised massacre of at least 200 people, mostly pro-independence supporters, in Dili in November 1991, Canberra minimised the number of dead and lent credibility to Jakarta's claims not to have been involved. In June 1994, Evans was cited in the Age as saying "all available evidence" suggested "horribly aberrant behaviour rather than a deliberate, centrally directed act of state policy". Later documents came to light demonstrating that the Labor government had been fully briefed by Australian officials in Indonesia on the extent of the slaughter.

Keating, who took over as prime minister from Hawke in 1991, depended heavily on the Suharto regime to open diplomatic doors and economic opportunities in Asia. Suharto's support was crucial to Keating's efforts to establish APEC as the major regional leaders' forum in opposition to efforts by the Malaysian government to marginalise Australian influence in Asia. In return, the Keating government stepped up defence ties with the junta, filling the gap left by the decision of US Congress to limit military relations with Indonesia following the Dili massacre.

In comments reported in the Age in 1994, Labor's defence minister Robert Ray bluntly dismissed criticism of Australia's military support for the Indonesian dictator. "Indonesia's finding that its opportunities in the US to train militarily are much more limited than they've been in the past, if not drying up," Ray said. "So Australia is willing to fill part of the void. Clearly some will object but they always do... Our agenda is not entirely run by them, though." These arrangements culminated in the signing of a joint security treaty with Indonesia in 1995, paving the way for joint military exercises.

The fall of Suharto in 1998 amid the Asian financial crisis, and the re-emergence of claims by Portugal, the former colonial power in East Timor, led the government of Liberal Party leader John Howard to support Timorese independence.

Labor immediately followed suit with shadow foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton urging Howard to adopt a more "forthright position" on self-determination for East Timor. The entire political establishment lined up behind the Australian military interventions in 1999 and 2006, not out of any concern for the Timorese people, but to preempt rival powers, safeguard control of the Timor Sea oil and gas, and establish a regime in Dili favourably disposed to Australian interests.

Labor's reaction to Suharto's death is of a piece with its long and sordid history of support for the Indonesian dictatorship. Keating spoke for the party as a whole when he embraced Suharto as a friend and dismissed criticisms of his brutal atrocities. The WSWS contacted the offices of prominent Labor "lefts"-Laurie Ferguson, Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek and Lindsay Tanner, all of whom are ministers or parliamentary secretaries in the Rudd government-to solicit their reaction to Keating's remarks. None returned the call, which is not surprising given the silence of left faction going all the way back to Suharto's 1972 visit to Australia.

Labor's support for the mass murderer Suharto is a timely warning that the Rudd government will literally stop at nothing in its aggressive pursuit of the interests of Australian capitalism in Asia and beyond.

West Papua

Local government bodies reject proposal on Papua split

Jakarta Post - February 5, 2008

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – The Papuan People's Assembly (MRP) and the Papuan Legislative Council (DPRP) have rejected a proposal by the House of Representatives (DPR) to divide Papua into four provinces.

DPRP deputy chairman Paskalis Kosay said over the weekend that both the MRP and DPRP were stepping up their opposition to the plan to divide the two Papua provinces into four provinces because the decision was not in line with Article 76 of Law No. 21/2001 on special autonomy for Papua which requires a recommendation from the MRP.

"The MRP and the DPRP discussed this matter with local administration bodies. They hope that the local administration will help them convince the DPR to postpone its initiative to divide Papua into four provinces," Paskalis said.

The MRP and DPRP plan to write a formal letter stating their opposition to the House draft law on Papua which would split Papua into four provinces, he said.

MRP deputy chairman Frans Wospakrik said that the House's draft was based purely on political considerations.

"The DPR has to maintain its initiative rights. Legislation must evolve through the democratic principles which form the basis of law. It must not be a process of simply securing political interests. I hope that all institutions will act consistently with the law that exists in this country," Frans said.

He said that based on Article 76 of the 2001 law on special autonomy, the MRP must first collect information from local communities to determine what they want. This ensures that new legislation is in line with cultural conditions of affected areas.

"Just look at what is happening," said Frans. "We had yet to plan formal discussion on this matter, but the central DPR has already established the draft law on splitting Papua into four provinces. Of course, we absolutely reject the draft law, we have not been consulted."

Neles Tebay, a lecturer at Fajar Timur Institute of Theological Philosophy in Jayapura expressed a similar view. He said the split would widen the gap between indigenous Papuans and migrants.

Dividing Papua into four provinces, Neles said, would provide more jobs in economic and governmental sectors, but this would also attract more people from outside Papua seeking employment.

"Unfortunately, migrants tend to get the best jobs in strategic sectors, while the Papuans remain in low-level positions," said Neles.

"I am sure that all strategic positions in the governmental sector will be filled by skilled workers who are not Papuans. The positions, of course, will be filled by migrants. The split will only advantage migrants, not indigenous Papuans." He said this would cause more conflict in Papua.

Rights report slams Indonesia over threats in Papua, idle reforms

Jakarta Post - February 1, 2008

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Threats and intimidation against rights defenders increased in Papua and West Papua provinces in 2007 while efforts at military reform stalled, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday in its global report on human rights.

It praised the revocation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the criminalizing of public expressions of hatred toward the government, as well as efforts toward accountability for the murder of rights icon Munir Said Thalib.

"Some progress was made in addressing the human rights crimes of the (former president) Soeharto era," said the HRW's World Report 2008.

It considered the revocation of the Truth Commission a move ahead in abolishing impunity since the commission would have been able to grant amnesty to those responsible for past crimes.

National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) chairman Ifdhal Kasim said the report underlined Jakarta's half-hearted human rights protection despite various legally binding instruments.

"The fact that we still talk about the unresolved cases of the (1989) Talangsari incident, the military operations in Papua and Aceh or the 1965 coup shows we have been running to a standstill. Many rights cases that the commission has brought to the prosecutor's office are gathering dust in their office," he said.

The report also says that peaceful political activists in Papua and West Papua continued to be classified as separatists, facing arrest and criminal conviction, while excessive and often brutal force was still used by the government against civilians.

Ifdhal said the current government was still clinging to the ways of past administrations to isolate the eastern-most, resource- rich Papua region. Foreign journalists need approval to enter the region, while international rights officials have been denied entry.

The report cited a May 2007 incident in East Java when 13 Marines shot and killed four civilians over a land dispute. It said this incident exemplified continuing human rights violations associated with the involvement of security forces in private business.

Freedom of religion, meanwhile, was rated low with the report referring to incidents of radical elements forcibly closing minority places of worship with little response from local authorities.

On child domestic and migrant workers, the report said poorly monitored labor recruiters often deceived workers about their jobs abroad and returning migrant workers were diverted to a separate terminal and subjected to extortion.

A current draft law that would mandate an eight-hour work day, a weekly day of rest and an annual holiday, it added, carried no sanctions against employers or recruiting agencies that violate its provisions.

The annual report is the 18th compiled by the group, founded in 1978 as Helsinki Watch's Europe and Central Asia divisions. It summarizes the human rights situation in more than 75 countries.

Military ties

Bush to ask Congress for $16 million in military funding

Jakarta Post - February 4, 2008

Tony Hotland, Jakarta – US President George W. Bush is poised to deliver his annual budget request Monday, proposing US$186 million in bilateral assistance to Indonesia in 2009, including some $16 million for military funding.

The total amount is, as reported by the Associated Press, down $4 million from 2008, but the military aid level remains roughly the same.

For 2008, Bush asked for and received $15.7 million for foreign military financing to help Indonesia "promote defense reform and improve maritime security, counterterrorism, mobility and disaster relief capabilities".

Military analyst Ikrar Nusabakti of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said Sunday the figure was not unusual and would simply maintain Washington's military cooperation with Jakarta.

"Regardless of some haunting human rights issues and still overshadowed by Bush's terrorism policy, the requested amount is a peanut," Ikrar told The Jakarta Post.

Besides, he added, Washington had to have learned that it could not afford to forgo military relations with Indonesia as it did between 1999 and 2005.

Military relations between the two countries were strained in 1999 following the referendum in breakaway province East Timor (now Timor Leste), with human rights groups accusing Indonesia of mass killings by the militia groups with the support of the army.

Bush revived all cooperation in 2005 after declaring Jakarta had made progress on some of Washington's earlier demands, including the prosecution of military officials in several human rights cases. "There was sort of a generation loss during the embargo when the US military had no Indonesian counterpart," said Ikrar.

The Bush administration sees Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, as crucial to fighting terrorism in Southeast Asia.

New York-based rights group East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) has opposed increasing military assistance to Indonesia because it believes change in the Indonesian military's conduct over the past few years has yet to warrant such a generous increase.

On Monday, Bush will also request nearly $16 million in military aid for Myanmar. Jacked up from around $5 million for 2008, the amount is seen as support to spark change in the country after its military junta crushed pro-democracy protests led by students and Buddhist priests last year.

Monday's request will be the start of a long process. The Senate and the House of Representatives must make recommendations on funding, and negotiators from each side will then hammer out a compromised bill before sending it to the president for enactment.

With Bush entering his last year in office, he faces strong opposition from the Democratic party that controls Congress, meaning there's no guarantee the budget will be funded at the levels he has requested.

Human rights/law

Munir case 'can push intelligence reform'

Jakarta Post - February 6, 2008

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Reform within intelligence agencies is necessary to make those bodies accountable and prevent arbitrary killings such as the murder of rights activist Munir, lawmakers and experts said Tuesday.

"We need to push for intelligence reform that will allow for a control mechanism over the intelligence bodies so that they don't use state money to harm people," Golkar politician Yuddy Chrisnandi told a seminar here Tuesday.

Yuddy and several other lawmakers as well as local and international experts attending the seminar, which was jointly held by German-based Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Geneva-based Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), agreed Munir's assassination could trigger reform in the intelligence community.

"The Munir murder opens a political space for intelligence reform in Indonesia. The public has argued it can't have agencies that kill people," said Peter Gill, a professor in intelligence studies at the University of Salford.

Munir Said Thalib died from arsenic poisoning in 2004 on board a Garuda flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam. Overturning its own verdict, the Supreme Court convicted former Garuda Indonesia pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto of the premeditated murder of Munir and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

Former deputy National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Muchdi Purwo Prandjono and the agency's current second man in command M. As'ad are alleged to have played a part in the murder. No formal investigation has been launched against them, despite their links to the case being mentioned in earlier court trials. BIN leaders have denied the allegations.

Mutammimul 'Ula of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said the party was committed to pushing intelligence reform by endorsing a bill that puts the intelligence bodies under the control of the House of Representatives. BIN currently falls under the president's auspices.

"We agree the future law on intelligence opens the possibility for scrutinizing and overseeing the intelligence bodies," Mutammimul said.

Chairman of the House's Commission I for defense, security and international affairs Theo Sambuaga insisted the government submit the bill on intelligence as soon as possible. "We've run out of time. Unless the draft reaches us soon, we can't get it passed before the 2009 election," he said.

Gill said the current draft law proposed by the government was too general and justified the current practices and authority of the intelligence agencies. "It really just describes what they can do, and now it's legal," he said.

Gill proposed the intelligence law limit the authority of the intelligence bodies, and specify in what areas they could operate as well as which institution should supervise them. In addition, he said, the law must specify the role of the parliament in controlling the agencies.

He also suggested combined deliberation of the bills on intelligence bodies, state secrecy and freedom of information to determine the extent of the intelligence bodies' authority.

Police 'to name new suspects in Munir murder case by June'

Jakarta Post - February 5, 2008

Jakarta – Police plan to name new suspects in the case of the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib by June at the latest, a former member of the fact-finding team for the case said Monday.

Usman Hamid, former secretary of the team, said after a closed meeting with the National Police crime investigation division that police promised they would investigate everyone linked to the high-profile murder.

"The new suspects were mentioned earlier in the trials," Usman told reporters. "The division's chief (Gen. Comr. Bambang Hendarso Dhanuri) promised us the investigation wouldn't stall at Pollycarpus and that they would go after the mastermind of the murder," he said.

Usman, together with former deputy chief of the fact-finding team Asmara Nababan and former members Hendardi and Kamala Tjandrakirana, attended the closed meeting with the police to pave the way for the investigation into intelligence officials linked to the case.

Usman said the team hoped all parties would cooperate in the investigation, including the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) and the largest Muslim organization in the country, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Former BIN deputy chief M. As'ad and official Muchdi Purwo Prandjono are suspected of having connections with the case.

"It seems the NU objects to the allegation that As'ad is linked to the case, as a member of the organization," Usman told The Jakarta Post. "The team hopes that organizations such as the NU can play a role in revealing the facts."

According to a BIN agent's written statement read out in court recently, Muchdi and Pollycarpus were in regular contact with one another, and Muchdi gave the latter Rp 10 million (US$1,087) on June 14, 2004, and another Rp 3 or Rp 4 million after that, for an unknown purpose.

In another trial, BIN official Budi Santoso issued a statement saying As'ad had ordered Garuda Indonesia president director Indra Setiawan to assign Pollycarpus as a security officer on the plane that took Munir to Amsterdam.

Muchdi and As'ad, however, have yet to be named as suspects, despite their links to the case being mentioned in the court trials. They have denied being linked to the murder.

Muchdi's lawyer, M. Mahendradatta, said last week his client would stay in Jakarta and was ready for the police investigation. "Muchdi works and resides in Jakarta. He is always in Jakarta," he said.

Munir died from arsenic poisoning on a Garuda flight on Sept. 7, 2004, a flight that also carried Pollycarpus, who was convicted by the Supreme Court and sentenced to a 20-year prison term Jan. 25.

In separate court trials, prosecutors demanded an 18-month jail term for Indra Setiawan and a one-year sentence for Garuda secretary Rohainil Aini for conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, based on their roles in facilitating Pollycarpus' placement on Munir's flight. (dia)

Rights body joins forces to oppose new bylaw

Jakarta Post - February 5, 2008

Agnes Winarti, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights has agreed to oppose the implementation of the city's public order bylaw this month.

Deputy chairman of the commission M. Ridha Saleh said his organization would send a letter to the President opposing the bylaw.

"Basically, every action that hampers people's access to a better living is a violation of human rights," Ridha said Monday after meeting with representatives from the Alliance of Poor People.

He said the commission would lend support to the alliance in its efforts to oppose the implementation of the bylaw. Arus Pelangi, LBH Jakarta, WALHI, KONTRAS and the Jakarta Center for Street Children (JCSC) are among non-governmental organizations that make up the alliance.

Ridha said the commission viewed the bylaw as being a threat to philanthropy as well as denying street vendors, sex workers and slum dwellers the right to seek a better living.

The city administration plans to implement the controversial bylaw this month. The ordinance, which will replace a similar ordinance introduced 19 years ago, is aimed at making Jakarta a cleaner and more orderly city.

Under the bylaw, individuals and institutions will no longer be permitted to shop with street vendors or give money or goods to beggars, buskers or car windshield cleaners.

In a final effort to oppose the implementation of the bylaw, the alliance sought the support of the commission, which is set to give its final assessment on the bylaw to the Home Ministry soon.

In an earlier meeting with officials from the ministry, the alliance failed to persuade the ministry to drop the bylaw, which was passed by the administration last September.

Rido Triawan, the head of Arus Pelangi, said the ministry had supported the bylaw as it could not find any evidence suggesting it contradicted a higher law or violated human rights. However, he said the alliance would not give up as there was still a chance the bylaw could be overturned.

According to the law on regional autonomy, the ministry could veto the bylaw within 60 days, he said. "Within that period of time the bylaw should not have been implemented. However, public order officers used the bylaw in recent raids against transsexual sex workers at Taman Lawang and in an eviction in Rawasari, Central Jakarta," he said.

Separately, the head of bylaw verification at the Home Ministry, Janiruddin, said no recommendations had been made so far. "We have not yet reached any final decision on the bylaw," he said. "But bylaws can be implemented from the moment they are enacted by the administration," he added.

Information bill a threat to press freedom: council

Jakarta Post - February 1, 2008

Jakarta – While promoting transparency, the public information bill poses a threat to the nation's hard-won press freedom as it contains articles which may criminalize some journalistic work.

The council's deputy chairman Sabam Leo Batubara said Thursday, that if enacted, the bill would discourage the media from exercising their freedom to report irregularities in public institutions. "Some articles in the bill violate freedom of information," Leo said.

Article 49 of the bill says that anyone who misuses public information on purpose will face a maximum sentence of two years in jail or a maximum Rp 30 million (approximately US$3,243) fine.

Article 54 of the bill threatens to jail anyone who accesses or spreads "certain" information classified as being outside of the public domain for a maximum of five years or to fine them a maximum Rp 75 million.

"The bill will keep journalists from disclosing wrongdoings in public institutions. The measurement to determine 'certain' information is misused and remains unclear," Leo said. "Naturally, nobody wants to risk being sent to jail. The bill will make journalists avoid negative reports."

The bill says journalists, instead of the media organizations they represent, are responsible for any misuse of non-public information and thus will have to face legal consequences. "We will push the lawmakers to remove the penalties from the bill, for the sake of press freedom," Leo said.

The draft law also mandates the formation of the Commission of Information, which should comprise representatives of both executive and legislative bodies, while its work will fall under government supervision. Leo said the Commission of Information should be independent of government intervention like the General Elections Commission or the Corruption Eradication Commission.

In the end, the bill would impede the press' functions to monitor, criticize and correct anything related to the greater public interest including press responsibility to defend truth and justice.

The House expects to pass the bill in March 2008 at the latest. If enacted, the bill will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2010. (rff)

Labour issues

Employers stall on wage hikes nationwide

Jakarta Post - February 6, 2008

Jakarta – Most workers in industrial estates in Sumatra and Java have yet to benefit from higher monthly wages, despite the regional minimum wage increase which came into effect in January, 2008.

In Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, hundreds of workers staged a massive rally to protest their employers' reluctance to comply with the gubernatorial decree on minimum wages.

Protesters demanded the provincial authorities punish companies violating the decree, to enable workers to survive the soaring prices of basic commodities.

Anti-Slavery Labor Movement (GERAK) coordinator Tohonan Tampubolon said the government should punish violating companies to prevent employers from abusing workers' rights.

"Workers should have their monthly wages raised by ten percent as stipulated by the governor's decree, because the wage rise has already been approved by the labor unions, the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) and the government," he said in a meeting with provincial councillors Monday.

The provincial minimum wage was raised almost ten percent from Rp 805,000 to Rp 895,000 (US$95).

While employers made an annual adjustment to staff wages only three or four months before the regional minimum wage increase, the workers had still protested, Tohonan said. "This indicates poor industrial relations between workers and the management, who have preferred to exploit their workers," he said.

The chairman of the provincial legislative council's Commission D on social affairs, Abul Hasan, said the commission would hold a hearing with the governor and employers to discuss the immediate adjustment of the new minimum wage.

In Riau Islands, most workers on industrial estates in Batam and Bintan have not yet received a raise in their gross monthly wage, because employers had filed a lawsuit against the governor's decree which raised the minimum wage from Rp 860,000 to Rp 960,000 a month.

Liasna Sembiring, a manufacturing industry worker in Batam Center industrial estate, said she had not received a wage increase and, despite the increasing protests, the management had made excuses to postpone the raise.

Kenny, 29, another worker at Batamindo industrial estate, said he received only Rp 870,000 in his January pay check, "and there was no health, food or attendance allowance".

Chief of the provincial manpower and transmigration office Azman Taufik said he had delivered a circular asking all companies to keep their workers' rights in accordance with the decree.

He said he was confident the courts would not accept the employers' lawsuit because it was based on a tripartite decision. It was just the employers' trick to buy time, he said.

In Bandung, West Java, many employers were still in negotiations with their workers despite the governor ruling on the wage increase in the province.

Edi Ibrahim, chairman of a chapter of the Indonesian Workers Union (SPN), said the minimum wages set by the government were effective only for newly recruited workers and both employers and labor unions have to negotiate the hike for workers who have already been employed one year or more.

"Workers have demanded a hike by five percent and employers will have no reason to turn it down to help improve workers' purchasing power," he said.

The governor has issued a decree on the minimum wage increase to Rp 990,000 in Bekasi, Rp 860,000 in Bandung and Rp 570,000 in Banjar.

Workers shut down biscuit factory

Jakarta Post - February 5, 2008

Padang, West Sumatra – Padang-based biscuit maker PT Asia Megah Biskuit has halted operations since Dec. 22 last year after a series of demonstrations by its more than 600 workers.

The workers are demanding the firm's general manager and production manager be fired for unspecified offenses.

At least 100 workers from the company arrived at the local legislative council building on Monday to air their complaints. A representative for the workers, Jufri Rafles, said around 600 employees of PT Asia Biskuit would lose their jobs if the dispute was not resolved.

Padang Legislative Council deputy head Panji Alam encouraged company owners not to close operations in Padang. "This is the last big company still operating in Padang. Other big companies have already shut down their operations," Panji said.

Environment/natural disasters

Landslide kills at least seven in Indonesia

Associated Press - February 6, 2008

Jakarta – Rescuers dug for survivors after a landslide on Indonesia's main island pummeled a village on Wednesday, killing at least seven people and destroying homes and roads, officials said.

Days of torrential rainfall sent tons of mud surging into the village of Brebes, 150 miles east of the capital, Jakarta, on Java island, said Rustam Pakaya of the Health Ministry's Disaster Crisis Center.

Four bodies were recovered, including that of a 6-year-old boy, he said. Police and villagers were using traditional farming tools to dig out other victims because heavy digging machinery was unable to pass blocked roads.

Three houses were washed away, eight others were damaged and 200 people fled to temporary shelters, he said.

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a vast chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.

Regional ordinances in Java still not eco-friendly: study

Jakarta Post - February 1, 2008

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – Over two-thirds of 278 existing regional ordinances across Java island are not eco-friendly, allowing locals to exploit natural resources without environmental controls, a study has said.

The 2007 study, conducted by Hariadi Kartodiharjo of the office of the coordinating minister for the economy, found most local authorities issued ordinances focused on raising cash for their budgets. "The ordinances are oriented mainly on business permits, tax and the use of natural resources, without examining environmental limits," he said.

It said 60 percent of the reviewed ordinances did not calculate environmental impacts from exploitation activities of natural resources. "The regional ordinances did not examine impacts on water resources or the maximum limit of water that could be drilled," he said.

The study also checked whether local administrations had used public or non-governmental organizations to enforce the ordinances. "Most of 'exploitative' ordinances don't involve the public and activists," he said.

The study will be presented to the coordinating minister for the economy February 21.

A year earlier, Hariadi reviewed 109 ordinances, about 60 percent of which were deemed not eco-friendly. "I think the government should formulate standards of the ordinances that also would protect the environment," he said.

Many criticized the regional ordinances for creating a high cost economy that disrupted the business climate.

"The Home Affairs Ministry has annulled thousands of regional ordinances that violated the (higher) law and caused a high cost economy," he said. "But the office has yet to review the impacts of ordinances on environmental conditions," he added.

Hariadi, who is also chairman of the National Forestry Council, said the regional ordinances could play a crucial role in protecting the environment, particularly in the aftermath of regional autonomy.

The autonomy law gives power to local administrations to manage their areas and raise money for their budgets.

A series of natural disasters, including floods, landslides and drought hit the country every year. Experts predicted natural disasters would become increasingly common due to the poor land- use management across the country.

"We often hear high-ranking officials order the people to plant more trees in response to natural disasters... It seems very easy but they forget they are facing ordinances which are not pro- environment," he said.

A study by the state minister for the environment previously indicated Java was the area most prone to water-related disasters. It said 603 areas in East Java, 531 in Central Java and 430 in West Java were very vulnerable to floods and landslides. West Java experienced 77 landslides between 2003 and 2005, killing 166 people.

Hariadi said he would also analyze regional ordinances related to the country's forestry sector this year.

The National Forestry Council and the Nature Conservancy (TNC) signed a memorandum of understanding to promote good governance and policy in the forest sector.

The TNC said by 2015 it would work with 180 forest concessions (HPH), mainly in Kalimantan, Papua and Sulawesi, to promote effective forest conservation. "We have so far cooperated with nine HPH holders to promote forest conservation," TNC country director Rili Djohani said.

War on corruption

KPK told to clean its own personnel

Jakarta Post - February 6, 2008

Jakarta – The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) must rid itself of the "invisible hands" hampering its fight against corruption, a workshop heard here Tuesday.

To make it a credible force in the battle against graft, the KPK should eradicate corrupt practices within its office, lawmaker and legal expert Moh. Mahfud MD told the forum.

He said there were indications that information had been leaked to corruption suspects before the commission conducted raids on their homes and/or offices as part of investigations.

Mahfud, a lawmaker with the National Awakening Party and a member of the House of Representatives' Commission III on law and human rights, cited the case of convicted former State Logistics Agency (Bulog) head Widjanarko Puspoyo. Some officials may have leaked relevant information to Widjanarko about the schedule of a planned raid on his office, Mahfud said.

"Widjanarko managed to elude investigators several times because he knew when the KPK would investigate at his office," he told the workshop organized by Indonesia Corruption Watch.

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Widjanarko on Monday to 10 years in prison for corruption that cost Rp 79 billion (US$8.59 million) in state losses. He was ordered to return the money and was fined Rp 500 million. Widjanarko said he would appeal the verdict.

A few years ago, another KPK investigator was convicted of corruption for taking a bribe from a suspect he was investigating.

KPK deputy chairman for the prevention division Waluyo could not confirm or deny Mahfud's statement against his office. "KPK has received no formal reports on this matter yet," he said.

Waluyo said the commission would take swift and severe action against anyone within its body proven to have leaked classified information of any kind to a graft suspect.

The KPK has strictly controlled all "important documents" and it is not easy for unauthorized staff to access key information on ongoing investigations, he added.

Mahfud also urged the KPK to be more efficient so it could resolve cases more quickly. From 2002 until June 2007, the KPK recorded 19,901 complaints, of which a third, or 6,213, were corruption-related. However, the anti-corruption court has sentenced only 59 defendants.

"There are two ways of achieving efficiency. First, the KPK should prioritize solving big cases and hand over petty corruption cases to other courts," he said. Second, he said, the commission should also closely supervise all legal processes.

The 2002 bylaw on KPK's authority stipulates the commission must investigate cases causing the state material losses of at least Rp 1 billion.

The one-day anti-corruption workshop, also attended by dozens of participants from provinces such as Riau, Aceh and Yogyakarta, also featured ICW coordinator Teten Masduki. (ewd)

Suspicious transactions up ahead of 2009 polls: Center

Jakarta Post - February 2, 2008

Abdul Khalik, Nusa Dua, Bali – Indonesia is seen to be a main target for money laundering, as a report by the Indonesian financial intelligence unit reveals, with a sharp increase in suspicious transactions at financial institutions prior to the upcoming elections.

The cases allegedly involved money that had been transferred to politicians to finance political campaigns for the 2009 legislative and presidential elections.

The report from the Financial Transaction Reports Analysis Center (PPATK) shows that suspicious transactions, at domestic banks and non-bank financial institutions, almost tripled from some 2,055 cases three years ago, to some 5,831 in 2007.

At December last year, the total number of suspicious transactions reported to the anti-money laundering center had reached 12,000 since the center opened in 2001.

"The center has seen a significant increase year by year. Currently, we have 16 suspicious transactions a day," PPATK chief Yunus Hussein told The Jakarta Post here Friday.

Yunus was in Bali attending a five-day international conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, which concludes Friday.

He said the suspicious transactions were an indication of money laundering cases in Indonesia, a country regarded as a target for international money laundering activities.

"We are now analyzing those transactions and if we are sure that there is a connection to money laundering, we will refer them to the police or prosecutors," Yunus said.

A transaction is considered to be suspicious if it involves, among others, a sudden transfer of money without clear explanations about the sender or their use of funds.

The PPATK said that the number of cash transactions filed by financial institutions tripled, from 1.5 million in 2005 to some 4.4 million last year.

The soaring number of cash transactions has raised suspicions that the funds may have been mobilized for the upcoming general elections.

Yunus said he did not rule out the possibility that the dubious transactions were connected to political parties and related institutions. "I think every political party has started raising funds early for their election campaigns, rather than waiting for next year," he said.

Money politics has been commonplace among political parties in Indonesia particularly ahead of and during national and local elections.

While poll monitors had reported money politics practices and other violations of the election regulations pertaining to the maximum limit of corporate and individual contributions to political parties, no cases have ever been brought to the courts.

This was attributed to weak financial investigations and data on such cases.

Yunus said his office would only be able to analyze and trace whether the financial transactions were channeled to political parties or politicians if the National Elections Commission (KPU) asks for help. "We are waiting for the KPU to sign a memorandum of understanding with us, to enable us to act," he said.

Yunus said he had asked the House of Representatives to complete the deliberations of a revised bill on PPATK, which empowers its role and authority to deal with suspicious transactions. If approved, the bill would allow the center to investigate suspicious transactions and freeze assets.

NGOs disappointed with conference

Jakarta Post - February 2, 2008

Dicky Christanto and Muhammad Nafik, Nusa Dua, Bali – A coalition of civil society groups said the international anti- graft conference wrapped up here Friday had seen "little progress" made toward finding a better partnership to fight corruption.

The coalition said the five-day conference had not allowed civil society organizations to actively participate in monitoring the implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) together with the state parties.

In this case, the conference of the state parties to the UNCAC failed to promote transparency among them in implementing the convention, the coalition said.

"It clearly shows that these governments do not want to be monitored by others, especially by us, the civil society," Transparency International (TI) director for global programs Christiaan Poortman told The Jakarta Post.

"It is ironic, since these governments have vowed to eradicate corruption practices but failed to perform transparency in doing it," he said.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) spokesman Bamban Widjoyanto said local and international NGOs were dissatisfied with the results of the conference "because it did not ensure public transparency in implementing the convention's review mechanism by involving civil society organizations".

Poortman said it seemed there were some countries that did not want the review mechanism implemented immediately.

The early stages of the review mechanism included the obligation for state parties to fill self-assessment checklists that explained their weaknesses and their success stories in efforts to eradicate corruption.

Such lists were expected to explain the very position of each state party in the global campaign against graft, and to help United Nations on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in offering assistance requested by these countries.

Many signatory countries, mostly African nations, were still not returning their assessment lists to the UNODC.

This failure prompted the meeting to decide to resume discussions on the implementation of the review mechanism at the third conference in Doha by the end of 2009.

Dadang Trisasongko of the Partnership for Governance Reform, also a local member of the coalition, said the conference's refusal to include civil society organizations in monitoring the implementation of the conference's outcome was obviously violating the UNCAC itself, which obliges its state parties to ensure public participation by encouraging civil society organizations to jointly combat corruption.

"It is a characteristic of countries in transition from authoritarianism to democracy," Dadang said.

"They are not ready to be criticized. As for Indonesia, it is obvious that excluding other parties in monitoring government policies is one of the ultimate legacies from Soeharto's New Order regime".

But he said the conference succeeded in increasing the awareness of its signatory countries to join forces in battling corruption.

"More regional working groups are established. They would discuss new ways of in battling corruption in their respective regions," he said.

Chief judge in Adelin case gets promotion

Jakarta Post - February 1, 2008

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – One more member of the Medan District Court judicial panel that refused punishment for logging boss Adelin Lis has been promoted.

Arwan Byrin said his appointment as chief of the Palembang, South Sumatra High Court was unrelated to Adelin's acquittal by the panel on charges of forestry corruption, a case over which Arwan presided. "I was promoted at the proper time and this has nothing to do with the Adelin case," he said at a ceremony.

Robinson Tarigan, also a member of the panel of judges that cleared Adelin, was previously promoted to the top spot at the East Jakarta District Court.

According to reliable sources at Medan District Court, Doman Sinaga and Jarasmen Purba – members of the Adelin panel – are to receive promotions as well.

Doman will become chief of the Pematang Siantar District Court and Jarasmen deputy chief at the Surabaya District Court, according to the sources.

Arwan defended the outcome in the high-profile case where the court found no evidence of corruption or illegal logging.

Adelin was arrested in Hong Kong and charged with taking timber from Natal Mandailing and South Tapanuli regencies and bribing government officials.

Prosecutors have appealed the decision, however Adelin disappeared after being released from custody as a result of the controversial verdict.

Medan High Court chief Kemar Saragih Siadari counseled the Medan District Court to take reform measures in view of judicial corruption at the court having received national and international media attention. Sunaryo said he has yet to determine what measures to take to improve the court's image.

War on terror

Indonesia, Australia say winning against extremists

Reuters - February 7, 2008

Canberra – Australia and Indonesia said they were making inroads into combating extremists in Southeast Asia, agreeing on Thursday to step up counter-terrorism efforts and extend security pacts between the two neighbours.

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and his new Australian counterpart Stephen Smith met in Western Australia to bring into force a 2006 security treaty which clears the way for training between Australian and Indonesian commandos.

"Counter-terrorism cooperation continues to be a success story of which our security policy agencies in both countries should be very proud," Smith said. "They have both put the terrorist infrastructure in our region under extreme pressure."

The pair met as three militants on death row in Indonesia for carrying out nightclub bombings in Bali in 2002 launched an appeal with the country's Supreme Court.

Islamic militants belonging to the Jemaah Islamiah group have been blamed for a series of bombings in Indonesia, although many of its leaders and supporters have been either killed or captured by security forces working with Australian police help.

Wirajuda is in Australia for three days to meet the new centre- left Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. He will meet Rudd on Friday.

Rudd's November election victory has been warmly received in Indonesia, especially after the former diplomat agreed in December to ratify the Kyoto climate pact in Bali, overturning a decade of conservative opposition.

Jakarta also expects Rudd to be less publicly strident about Islamic militancy in Asia and re-tune foreign policy to be more independent of the United States, abandoning conservative ambitions to be Washington's regional "sheriff".

Smith told Wirajuda that Australia would also increase aid to Indonesia, spending A$40 million ($35 million) to combat HIV, mostly in resource-rich Papua, where more than 3,000 people are suffering HIV/AIDS from a 2.5 million population.

Both countries renewed a counter-terrorism memorandum which paved the way for training between Australia's SAS and Indonesia's Kopassus commandos, curtailed in 1999 after a pro-Jakarta militia carried out attacks in newly-independent East Timor.

Senior officials would also meet more often to discuss counter- terrorism cooperation, Smith said.

The agreement is another sign of improving relations between both countries following disagreements over Papuan separatists granted asylum in Australia and people smuggling.

Elections/political parties

Islamic parties expected to fare badly in 2009 elections

Detik.com - February 6, 2008

Iqbal Fadil, Jakarta – A warning signal was raised today for political parties referring to themselves as Islamic parties. It is predicted that their votes in the 2009 elections will plummet and are unlikely to match those gained in the 2004 general elections.

"The total number of votes for Islamic parties is unlikely to exceed their share of votes in the 2004 general elections", said Professor Greg Fealy, a researcher in South-East Asia studies at the Australian National University.

Fealy made this comment during a discussion titled "Islam and Indonesian Politics in the Lead Up to the 2009 general elections", which was organised at the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) building on Jl. Gatot Subroto in Jakarta on Wednesday February 6. Fealy was even prepared to make predictions on the percentage of votes that that the Islamic parties will get.

Looking at the current situation, Fealy noted that the Islamic based United Development Party (PPP) would only be capable of garnering around 4-6 percent of the vote. "A year after being led by Suryadharma Ali there has been no revival or breakthrough achieved by the PPP. No consolidation at the base has been carried out either. In addition this Suryadharma as a figure is not well known," explained Fealy.

Fealy, who has been conducting research in Indonesia for some time went on to focus on the National Awakening Party (PKB). He said that the state of the PKB at present could be described as being one of disarray. "[Former President and PKB leader] Gus Dur has become like a dictator in the party. He determines everything. The Muhaimin Iskandar leadership has been undermined", he said.

The internal conflict that continues to rack the PKB with dismissals and the suspension of regional leadership bodies will cause the grassroots membership to turn away from the party. Moreover the rapid development of the Ulema National Awakening Party [PKNU, founded by senior Nahdlatul Ulama clerics disappointed by the Gus Dur-controlled PKB - JB] will further undermine the PKB's vote among their mass base in East Java.

Fealy said that by relying on the loyalty of the remaining members of Nahdlatul Ulama, the PKB would only be able to maintain a figure of 8-10 percent of the vote in the 2009 elections.

Fealy went on to cite the National Mandate Party (PAN) as another Islamic based party that is experiencing a slump in votes. The party has been visibly weakened since the replacement of the Amien Rais leadership.

"PAN is very much dependant financially on its general chairperson Soetrisno Bachir. In addition to this there is tension on the ground with [their traditional supporters from the Islamic mass organisation] Muhammadiyah", said Fealy who is fluent in Indonesian. Fealy is convinced that PAN's vote will decline drastically. "It will be difficult for them to get above 4 percent", he asserted.

With regard to the Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) meanwhile, Fealy make a similar prediction. Saying that the target of 20 percent in the 2009 elections as cited by the PKS leadership is far too ambitious. Fealy is also convinced that PKS's recent moves to declare itself as a party open to non-Muslims will be of little help. This is because of a slump in the PKS's image as a clean and idealistic party.

"The PKS has a lot of enemies at the moment. The Islamic mass organisations such as Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah and United Islam (Persis) oppose them on the ground. This is because the assets of these mass organisations such as mosques and educational institutions have been taken over by PKS cadre. There's a fight emerging", said Fealy.

Referring to a number of surveys by the Indonesian Survey Institute and Indo Barometer, Fealy said that the PKS's vote would be around 4-5 percent. In generally terms, Fealy concluded by saying that the total vote for the Islamic parties in the 2009 general elections will only be around 20 percent. (bal/sss)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Lower parliamentary threshold called for

Jakarta Post - February 4, 2008

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Using a parliamentary threshold in the next legislative election would simplify Indonesia's multi-party system, a coalition of non-governmental organizations said Saturday.

The coalition agreed that Indonesia's presidential system would be more compatible with a simple multi-party system.

Citing a statement made by foreign political expert Scott Mainwarning, members of the coalition agreed that, "the combination of presidentialism and multipartism makes stable democracy difficult to sustain".

Hadar Gumay, the executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), which is a member of the coalition, said over- fragmentation in the House of Representatives had resulted in redundant, intense deliberations and prolonged decision making.

He also said some small parties were not ready to enter the House. A limit on the number of political parties in the legislative body was therefore necessary, he said.

"The best way to reduce fragmentation would be by slashing the number of political parties in the House. They should not all participate in elections. Thus, adopting a parliamentary threshold would be more effective than the electoral threshold system," Hadar said.

He said the parliamentary threshold system was more democratic as it did not require the dismissal of losing parties in elections. Using the electoral threshold system has the potential to violate the constitution as it limits people's rights to become candidates, he said.

"Losing parties in elections that are unable to enter the House can prepare themselves better for elections in the future," Hadar said.

Rusdi Marpaung, the executive director of Imparsial, another member of the coalition, said a parliamentary threshold would benefit small parties by enabling them to learn and grow.

He said this was different from the electoral threshold system, which required losing parties in elections to cease operating, giving them no chance to develop.

The debate over thresholds for political parties has hampered the deliberation of the legislative election bill in the House.

Lawmakers look likely to agree on using an electoral threshold of 3 percent for the 2009 legislative election, but the direction to be taken in the 2014 election is still unclear.

Some lawmakers have sought an electoral threshold of 5 percent, while others have proposed a parliamentary threshold of 2 or 3 percent. There has also been talk of combining both systems.

The coalition of NGOs proposed a parliamentary threshold of 2 percent. Hadar said a higher threshold would create a closed system, in which only old, big parties could stay, while the combination of both thresholds would cause "extra-strict limitations".

Another issue that has extended the deliberation of the election bill in the House is the number of seats for lawmakers. Some factions want to maintain the current 550 seats, while others have demanded up to 576 seats.

The coalition urged the House to keep its current 550 seats. It said the quality of representation was more important than the quantity of representation.

Jeirry Sumampow from the People's Voter Education Network (JPPR) said, "more House members would mean more money to be spent, without guaranteeing the quality of representation."

Corrupt candidates to face tougher challenges ahead of elections

Jakarta Post - February 2, 2008

Dicky Christanto, Nusa Dua, Bali – An alliance of civil society groups has prepared tougher measures to strengthen its anti-graft campaign against corrupt politicians across the country, ahead of the 2009 legislative elections.

The alliance said measures would include issuing lists of politicians implicated, charged or convicted of corruption and publicize it nationwide before the elections, slated for April 2009.

The black lists of politicians are expected to raise awareness among the public so as not to elect candidates who have been involved in corruption practices, it said.

The alliance comprises Transparency International Indonesia (TII), Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), the Partnership for Governance Reform and many other local non-governmental organizations attending an international anti-corruption conference in Nusa Dua, Bali.

The alliance also said the lists would be an effective means to stop the nomination of corrupt candidates and to give their constituents a political guide, so they would only vote for those with clean track records.

"The main reason is because we see that most of the incumbent legislators are those with strong relations with the country's old forces, which according to us, are very corrupt," TII secretary general Rizal Malik said Thursday.

He said corrupt legislators were often hampering efforts to pass regulations with clear integrity.

Rizal said the plan to issue the black lists was triggered by last year's failure of the House of Representatives to select five new members of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), with clear track records.

The election of KPK chairman Antasari Azhar and members Bibit Samad Rianto, Mohammad Yasin, Hariyono and Chandra Hamzah drew protests from anti-graft activists.

They specifically accused Antasari and Bibit of being tainted with corrupt practices. Bibit is the former East Kalimantan police chief while Antasari is a former senior prosecutor for the Attorney General's Office.

The House was publicly slammed for naming corruption suspect Syamsul Bahri as one of seven new members of the General Elections Commission (KPU).

Syamsul's inauguration for his new post was suspended by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pending his graft trial at the Malang District Court, East Java.

Recently, the President and House leaders held a consultative meeting to discuss this issue and agreed to decide on Syamsul's KPU membership after a court verdict.

Rizal said the lists would be distributed, particularly in regions where political parties would nominate their legislative candidates, in cooperation with local NGOs.

The alliance said it would also organize public hearings aimed at educating people about clean politics.

PKS targets 20% votes, open for non-Muslims

Jakarta Post - February 2, 2008

Irawaty Wardany, Sanur, Bali – The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) announced it will target 20 percent of votes in the 2009 legislative election, and welcomes non-Muslim constituents, the party leader said here on Friday.

"We are quite optimistic after the results of the 146 regional direct elections in 2007, of which we won 86 independently and through coalitions," Party chairman Tifatul Sembiring told reporters Friday on the sidelines of the party's national meeting.

The meeting was attended by some 1,500 participants including party members and national figures, like People's Consultative Assembly chairman Hidayat Nurwahid who previously chaired PKS.

The party had significantly increased its supporters at regional elections including those in Jakarta, Bekasi and Banten, Tifatul said.

In the first ever Jakarta gubernatorial election PKS gained some 42.5 percent of the vote, he said. "We fought alone against a coalition of 21 parties (in the election)."

PKS-sponsored Adang Daradjatun and Dani Anwar lost to eventual winner Fauzi Bowo, previously deputy governor under outgoing Sutiyoso, and Prijanto.

Tifatul said his party, long recognized as a conventional Islamic party, would welcome support from all sides, regardless of backgrounds, including non-Muslims. "There are no laws or regulations forbidding political parties from seeking support from specific races or religious groups," he said.

Titaful said, in order to reach its target, PKS should change its image from being an elite party to a mass-based party, by familiarizing more people with the party, "especially those who the party has not reached previously like farmers and fishermen."

"We realize that PKS used to speak in 'high language', which many voters did not understand," he said. He said PKS needed to develop a closer relationship with the 'common people', because 60 percent of Indonesian voters had low education levels. "Many of them are only junior high-school graduates," Tifatul said.

Asked whether PKS would form a coalition with another party, Tifatul said his party would be open to any opportunities. "It all depends on the results of the legislative elections," he said.

For the legislative election candidates, Titaful said, PKS had set three requirements; Clean, caring and professional. "Clean means a candidate's track record must be free from any type of violations, particularly those relating to corruption, collusion and nepotism," he said.

Caring and professional, he said, meant candidates needed to have a high social values, and core competence to be able to deal with all kinds of problems.

Jakarta/urban life

Indonesian floods displace thousands, cause chaos

Reuters - February 3, 2008

Ade Mardiyati, Jakarta – Heavy rains and high tides have caused chaos in Indonesia's capital for three days, highlighting its ailing infrastructure as roads to the airport became impassable and thousands had to abandon their homes or cars.

The flooding also led to flight delays elsewhere in Southeast Asia and served as a reminder to many travelers, including the investors and bankers that Indonesia most needs to attract, of the country's widespread structural problems.

Indonesia requires billions of dollars of investment to build or modernize its airports, roads, railways, and power plants.

Its economic growth has lagged far behind that of China and India, in part because of ailing infrastructure, and the government wants to privatize a raft of state companies, from steel plants to palm oil plantations, to raise much-needed funds.

But following the chaos on Friday, when the capital was brought to a standstill and thousands of people were trapped in traffic jams for over 12 hours due to flooding, some of the very financiers that Indonesia needs to help fund new infrastructure have vowed to avoid the place.

"Memo to self: do not visit Jakarta in the rainy season again," wrote Hong Kong-based economist Jim Walker in a note to clients after he was stuck in traffic for nine hours trying to get to Jakarta's airport, a trip which usually takes no more than one hour.

"Today's traffic problems are an apt metaphor for Indonesia: stuck in first gear with long periods of sitting around waiting for the jam to clear. The country is stuck with lousy leadership, weak institutions and below-potential growth," wrote Walker, who now heads an independent research firm in Hong Kong and who for many years was CLSA's well-respected chief Asia economist.

One Jakarta-based banker, who had had to hitch a lift on an army truck for a four-hour ride through flooded roads back from the airport, said they had told their head office not to send out any more investors or staff to Jakarta until the flooding had subsided.

Every rainy season, Indonesia suffers from heavy flooding and landslides. Three people have died and about 100,000 were displaced in Jakarta since Friday due to the heavy rains and flooding.

The chaos in Jakarta also caused air traffic problems in other parts of Southeast Asia. When the airport was closed for several hours on Friday due to poor visibility, many flights were delayed and others could not land, leading to a backlog and long delays in other cities including Singapore.

By Sunday morning, there were still more than 15 vehicles including vans, buses and trucks trapped in about 70 centimeters of water on the toll road to Jakarta's Sukarno-Hatta airport and three cranes were brought in to move the vehicles out of the water.

Many cars had been abandoned at the roadside, and rubber boats were used to evacuate those people still trapped inside or on the roofs of their vehicles.

"Passengers who are trapped in the floods are being evacuated with rubber boats, and then transferred to buses to take them to the airport," Wawan, from toll road management company PT Jasa Marga, told Reuters by telephone.

Wawan, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, said that the water in the toll road near the airport was as deep as 70 cm. Rustam Pakaya, a health ministry official, said three people were killed in West Jakarta and nearly 100,000 people were displaced.

"Only one or two people were reported sick due to diarrhea and skin itches after the floods," Pakaya told Reuters by telephone, on Sunday.

[Writing by Sara Webb; Editing by David Fox.]

Jakarta stops in face of floods

Jakarta Post - February 2, 2008

Jakarta – Appointments were canceled, passengers were left stranded and residents were forced to leave their homes. Jakarta was chaotic on Friday.

Hours of heavy rains that started Thursday night saw many parts of the city come to a standstill by Friday afternoon. Water inundated main thoroughfares, including the Sedyatmo toll road to the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

"At the toll to the airport, motorists were trapped in traffic since 2:00 p.m.," Traffic Management Center (TMC) officer First Brig. Yoka Mulyadi told The Jakarta Post Friday night.

"Many were reported to have fainted. We received many calls for help; the trapped motorists asked us to send drinking water and food," Yoka said. He said there were more than 40 locations inundated by waters up to one meter high.

Rainwater flooded many of the capital's municipalities, with 37 of 267 subdistricts inundated more than 40 centimeters high.

On Jl. Gatot Subroto, Yoka said, people were trapped for more than three hours in traffic jams, from 4:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. In some areas, people were seen walking on foot or sharing a ride on open trucks after failing to get public transportation.

Sukma, a motorist, said Friday he had to push his motorcycle from Jl. Gunung Sahari to reach his office located on Jl. Kebon Kacang in Central Jakarta. "I have pushed my motorcycle for about an hour and now the machine is badly broken," Sukma said.

Floodwaters caused public transportation across the city to stop operations. Three Transjakarta lines were stopped by noon, leaving hundreds stranded. Stoppage information was not given to those waiting at bus stops.

Yudi said he and his mother waited for a Transjakarta bus traveling from Harmoni to Pulogadung, to no avail. "The flood is so awful everywhere. We don't know how we can reach home in Pulogadung," he said.

PT KA's head of public relations for the Jakarta area Akhmad Sujadi said the water submerged railways stretching from Rawa Buaya to Kalideres, causing the company to cancel the Tangerang- Jakarta's train route. "We also stopped carrying passengers between Serpong and Tanah Abang," he said.

Five trees were reported to have fallen across main thoroughfares, adding to traffic congestion.

Floodwaters also submerged residential areas. In West Jakarta, around 1,000 Pegadungan residents were evacuated to a mosque compound, while 150 Semanan residents moved to a shelter nearby, said municipality spokesperson Rachmat Mulyadi. "The water levels in the area is about 1.5 meter," he said.

West Jakarta task force center recorded 3,000 residents had been evacuated from their homes. Adi, an officer at the North Jakarta task force center, said there were around 300 residents in five shelters. He said in one of the camps, displaced people included women and children, but that many men had preferred to stand guard at their homes.

Economy & investment

Forecasts blamed for economic weaknesses

Jakarta Post - February 6, 2008

Jakarta – In a review of the government's performance in 2007, the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) says that it is disappointed with the government's economic plans and their implementation.

Kadin's economic research team head Faisal Basri said Tuesday that the government had failed to come up with reliable economic forecasting, which led to a series of problems hampering progresses and growth.

"The government has continued to produce inaccurate economic predictions since 2005," said Faisal during the inauguration of the new research team in Jakarta.

Faisal highlighted the government's critical failure in using the US$60 barrel oil price as an assumption in this year's state budget planning.

Oil prices now hover above $90 per barrel, pushing up the prices of staple foods and other products, forcing the government to revise the state budget far earlier than usual. "For the first time in our history we had to revise the national budget just one month after it was finalized," Faisal said.

The eight economists on the team identified the coming threat of skyrocketing oil prices as early as 2006, but their warning was not taken seriously by the government, he said.

Another member of the team, Anton Gunawan, said that Indonesia was currently experiencing a dangerous "policy and institutional deficit".

"Our institutional framework doesn't reflect the government's goals of increasing work opportunities and lowering the level of poverty. And we don't even have any decent framework for implementation," said Anton.

The chamber suggested the government manage itself more efficiently and "really listen" to their recommendations, as well as be more sensitive of international trends in devising its policies, particularly the national budget.

Also speaking at the inauguration, Kadin chairman Mohammad Hidayat said that the government needed to move beyond a "business as usual" work ethic to avoid repeating failures in its economic policies.

Although some of the chamber's short-term economic resolutions were adopted by the government through its food resilience policy, Hidayat said that the government should also implement recommendations with long-term impacts.

"Farmers need to get a financial guarantee from the government for any harvest failure caused by nature. This will bring back their spirits," he said as an example.

As a result of those failures, Hidayat said, citing the International Institute for Management Development's World Competitiveness Yearbook 2007, Indonesia was ranked 54th for the year, down one spot from last year. (lva)

Trade deficit with China blows out

Jakarta Post - February 4, 2008

Andi Haswidi, Jakarta – The trade deficit with China in the non-oil and gas sector skyrocketed by more than 3500 percent from US$35 million in 2006 to $1.28 billion last year, the Central Statistics Agency says.

In its latest report, the agency also shows that China emerged as Indonesia's biggest import origin for non-oil and gas products in 2007 with a total imports worth $7.95 billion, beating long-time chart topper Japan with $6.46 billion.

Compared to the country's total non-oil and gas imports, which reached $52.5 billion last year, China dominated with approximately 15.14 percent, followed by Japan with 12.3 percent and the United States with 8.98 percent.

Indonesia's total imports from China within the category remarkably jumped by 44.5 percent that year from the total of $5.5 billion made in 2006, far beyond the average increase from 2002 until 2006 that reached 29.6 percent.

"China has become a global exporter for quite some time. Even developed countries are afraid to compete head-to-head with it due to its ability to maintain efficiency in production costs."

"I think it's very natural for us to grow such a high dependency on products from China, considering our condition now," said Aviliani, an economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance.

The deficit, she said, was unavoidable as Indonesia's real economy was already shifting from industry-based toward trade- based, as shown by the growing number of small businesses.

"Most of these small businesses do not produce goods, but rather sell them, which mainly come from China as they are cheap, within the range of our purchasing power," she said.

On the policy front, she highlighted the chronic weakness in coordination among government departments, particularly the Trade Ministry and Industry Ministry.

"The Trade Ministry keeps on opening up import markets and neglecting to support the certain sectors that define the strength of the country's industry. For instance, we now have enough rice, so why are we still allowing it to be imported?" she said.

Focusing on the sudden surge in imports from China and the remarkable deficit growth, Beginda Pakpahan, a lecturer in international economy and politics at the University of Indonesia, pointed the finger at the ASEAN-China free trade agreement, which was signed back in 2002.

The FTA, a zero-tariff market of 1.7 billion people, is expected to be fully implemented in 2010 for the six original ASEAN members and in 2015 for the rest. An early harvest program covering trade in goods came into force in July 2005.

"When the early harvest took effect, we were already behind our regional partners in ASEAN, in terms of trade and industry cohesiveness with China, meaning they already prepared for benefiting from it while we merely act as an export market destination from China," he said.

He warned that in the near future, China would likely to intensify its focus on the region, particularly Indonesia with its 240 million consumers, as an export destination in order to compensate for the weakening demand of US consumers for its products.

"A stronger cohesiveness among ASEAN is crucial to balance China's power, something that we don't see materializing any time soon," he said.

Speaking on a more critical note, Didik J. Rachbini, chairman of the House of Representatives commission overseeing trade and investment said that the government had no strategy whatsoever in facing China's emergence as a global player.

"Chinese goods and our goods substitute for each other, meaning the two countries produce almost exactly the same kind of manufacturing products such as textiles, toys and food, very different from our trade with Japan, which is obviously complementary."

"The huge trade deficit in the non-oil and gas sector clearly reflects how Chinese products come in and move freely here without any protective strategy in place," Didik said.

Opinion & analysis

All wet, again

Jakarta Post Editorial - February 2, 2008

Jakarta is flooded, again. Just one day of incessant rain, from Thursday night through Friday morning, was enough to paralyze the capital with floods.

Although flooding is a relatively regular occurrence in the city, Friday's flooding seemed to have caught many people off guard. Residents were unprepared for the floods, as were the police and city administration.

No one, no institution, not even the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), warned residents to be ready for the floods. True, the BMG did forecast heavy rain Friday in Greater Jakarta, but it never mentioned the possibility of flooding.

When the capital did find itself underwater Friday morning, the story dominated radio and television stations. By that point, of course, it was too late to do anything but watch the disaster unfold.

The level of unpreparedness among residents, officials and police left the city in chaos, with massive traffic jams everywhere. Commuters spent hours trapped in their cars or on busses, with traffic at a complete standstill in many areas.

The flooding this time also disrupted flights at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, the country's main airport. The main access road to the airport was flooded, and the airport's two runways were closed for about four hours because of heavy rain, strong winds and lightning.

The flood simply brought the city's economy grinding to a near complete halt.

A calculation of the losses from Friday could brings us into the trillions of rupiah. These losses are from lost business opportunities, the damage caused by the floods and the lost productivity, from people stuck in traffic and those who simply stayed home to avoid the chaos.

That is just the cost from one day of flooding. It will naturally shoot up should the flooding extend into the next day and the next.

Considering the massive costs, it is time the city administration and the City Council draw up a comprehensive plan to prevent flooding and improve flood mitigation efforts.

We have long heard about a number of big flood-control projects, including the long-awaited East Flood Canal, which has been progressing at a snail's pace, if that fast. Funding problems, especially the unclear division of funding between the central government and city administration, have been holding up the project for years.

Aside from the major flood-control projects, the city administration should immediately launch projects to improve the city's drainage system – if there is any – or build a completely new and proper one.

Experience shows that even a small amount of rain in Jakarta can cause flooding. This is often because of the garbage-clogged drainage system. It is simply a bad habit for many people to toss their garbage into sewers, ditches, gutters and rivers near their houses.

The cost of clearing the city's drainage system of all this garbage is huge. Therefore, a concerted campaign should be pursued to educate people not to clog the sewers near their homes with garbage. If necessary, punish those who fail to dispose of their trash properly.

But this entails the city administration living up to its responsibility. It has to provide the infrastructures, including garbage cans, garbage dumps and trucks to collect the trash.

Clearing the banks of the city's rivers of squatters is also necessary. The city's administration seems to understand this, and has taken some steps to relocate those living illegally along river banks.

But these measures will take time to complete, and we cannot wait any longer for the next major flood.

In a situation like we faced Friday, with flooding everywhere, response measures like the evacuation of affected residents and the distribution of aid are all flood victims need.

Learning from past floods, we urge the city administration and all related authorities to improve their readiness to assist flood victims.

We also commend the participation of residents, especially the many volunteers from private companies and organizations, in helping flood victims. Our people are often united in despair.

The help is there, but what is needed is proper warnings to assemble and deploy. When floods happen without proper warning, as on Friday, we are all helpless.

Book/film reviews

An assessment: Democracy in the post-Soeharto era

Jakarta Post - February 3, 2008

[Indonesia: Democracy and the Promise of Good Governance. Editors: Ross H. McLeod, Andrew MacIntyre. Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). 207 pages, 2007.]

Setiono Sugiharto, Contributor – The demise of Soeharto's authoritarian rule in 1998 paved the way for a climate of democracy in Indonesia. After more than three decades under the iron-fist ruler, Indonesia began to experiment with democratic governance.

The birth of Indonesia's infant democracy prompted Indonesian people to seek betterment in all sectors of life, the most obvious being politics and media.

We have witnessed progress in Indonesia's government since 1998. A clear case in point is the people's serious commitment to upholding the general election in 2005 that brought President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to power. The relative freedom of expression through national media is another notable achievement.

However, despite this progress, the enthusiasm for sustaining this relatively democratic climate is not without challenges. There are still myriad lingering problems, most of which are the legacy of Soeharto's New Order regime, which is seen as the great barrier in the creation of good governance and a democratic country.

Realizing how fragile young democracy is if not well-supported by effective government, McLeod and MacIntyre stress the importance of the government's efforts in advancing social and economic domains, critical for legitimacy and political survival. In essence, effective governance is an important pre-condition for democratization.

As an anthology of highly selected writings by different experts in their fields, this edited "Indonesia update" series offers a critical account of the Indonesian government's attempts to establish and refine a democratic framework of governance.

Essentially it tries to answer to what extent the practice of a young democracy here has yielded desirable outcomes.

The purpose, as the editors say, is not "to call into question the objective of creating a genuinely democratic system of government, but rather to look more deeply into what is required if those efforts are to be successful and sustainable". This book is divided into three parts, each centering on different, yet related, foci. The first part highlights the importance of refining Indonesia's political institutions.

As the country's political architecture is formed by governmental and political institutions, a closer inspection in these issues is imperative in determining the key indicators of good and effective governance.

The second part assesses the role the Indonesian government has played. It specifically examines important issues on the achievement and progress of the country's economic system since the reformation era began in 1998. The authors argue economic advancement and the welfare of the citizen are the key indicators of good governance. Thus democracy can only make sense and its existence be sustained if the citizens, including children, can enjoy the country's economic prosperity.

The second part of the book also warns of the danger of imposing the dominant religious majority (which is termed "Muslim politics") in a democratic country, begging the questions of promoting free religious beliefs, values and norms.

The final part focuses on two of the most important institutions of democracy, the civil service and the legal system.

The writers stress the need to reform the old systems which still surround these two institutions. The prevailing culture of corruption, militaristic structure of civil service, unprofessional recruitment of professionals, lack of transparency in budgeting, inconsistent enforcement of laws and endemic corruption in the judiciary system, among others, are the lingering flaws that pose an immense challenge to reforming the country's bureaucracy and judiciary to achieve effective governance.

Well-supported by studies, each of the chapters in these three parts are lucidly written, offering both hindsight and foresight of what the country has been experiencing in its search for effective governance and what remains to done to sustain the relative progress it has attained.

The issues discussed are assessed from both current and historical perspectives. As such, a balance in presenting viewpoints is struck, avoiding bias.

The book is a timely scholarly contribution that can stimulate and provoke discussion on politics, economy and other important socially related issues.

[The writer is chief-editor of the Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching.]