According to Jakarta Police's Traffic Management Center, the first demonstration began at 9 a.m. at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle. A second rally was held outside the Supreme Court building at Jalan Medan Merdeka Utara at the same time.

The State Palace, which is located on the same street as the Supreme Court, will be the site of three rallies that will take place between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Groups of activists will come to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) at 10 a.m. and will march to the Presidential Advisory Board office. A different group of activists will also hold a rally at Hotel Indonesia traffic circle and march to the front of the National Police Headquarters on Jalan Trunojoyo in South Jakarta.

At 10:30 a.m. demonstrators will rally in front of the Chinese Embassy on Jalan Rasuna Said. Later in the afternoon activists will hold a rally at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.

There is also a rally planned at the office of the representative of North Maluku on Jalan Cempaka Putih, Central Jakarta, and a hunger strike planned at the KPK building.

West Papua

Death in Papua: political intrigue clouds miner's murder

Sydney Morning Herald - November 21, 2009

Jonathan Pearlman – As dawn was breaking across the Indonesian province of Papua on a Saturday last July, an Australian mine worker, Drew Grant, set out with friends along the winding road near the Freeport mine for a weekend of golf.

The driver and fellow mine worker, Lukan Biggs, would later recall that he heard a sharp pop and thought the car had skidded off a stone. But then the back-seat passenger started to scream: Mr Grant had been hit by a bullet that pierced the roof.

The 29-year-old – just back in Papua after visiting his wife and baby in Melbourne – probably died instantly.

In the aftermath, six villagers from the nearby town of Timika were rounded up by police and held without trial for four months. The men insist they are innocent – scapegoats caught in the murky politics of one of the world's most lucrative mines – and that they confessed after being beaten with rifle butts and threatened with shootings and electric shocks.

On Tuesday, five of the men were apparently released: their lawyers say all six still face charges and are yet to be given a trial date.

"They were blindfolded and the police said if they did not confess they would be taken to the bush and shot," Dackson Beanal, whose five family members were among the six in jail, said. "There were other threats. They were beaten up... Simon and Apius were handcuffed for almost two months."

Mr Grant's murder was one of several military-style shootings and ambushes in the past four months around the Grasberg mine, which reputedly has the world's largest recoverable copper and gold deposits and is owned by an American company, Freeport-McMoran. Two other people have died: a Freeport employee, Markus Rante Allo, and a policeman, Marson Pattipeilohy. But the shootings continued despite the six men's detention.

Analysts say the attacks, which involved skilled marksmen and military-issue bullets, bear the hallmarks of the Indonesian military. Some say they are linked to a long-running dispute between the army and the police over the job of providing security for the mine. Others say they are linked to disputes over local business opportunities or are a warning to the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to resist pressure to reform the military.

According to Indonesia's Tempo magazine, the shooting of Grant – and each subsequent attack – occurred in areas around the mine with mobile phone coverage, which would suggest high levels of planning and co-ordination. The magazine reported sightings of a group of armed men dressed in black who were filmed on security cameras near the mine and stopped by guards the day after Mr Grant was killed. But the group has never been identified or arrested.

About 24 men were arrested after the shootings. Most were released without charge. But, according to a local lawyer, Eliezer Murafer, six men were kept in three police stations across the province and charged with the attacks.

They are: Simon Beanal, 30, who apparently suffers a mentally disability, Eltinus Beanal, 26, Tommy Beanal, 25, Apius Uamang, 39 – all residents of Timika – and two employees of the mine, Dominikus Beanal, 25 and Amon Yawame, 30.

Mr Murafer told the Herald that the four Timika residents were at home at the time of the shootings and the two Freeport employees were in their hotel.

"They are worried they will be made the scapegoats for the incidents. They have been waiting such a long time and there is no certainty they will be brought to trial."

The Beanal detainees are members of a well-known Papuan clan which gained global fame in the late 1990s when an elder, Tom Beanal, launched a lawsuit in the US accusing Freeport of cultural genocide and environmental damage. Mr Beanal lost the case but was subsequently – along with other community leaders – recruited to the board of Freeport's Indonesian subsidiary in an apparent attempt to quell local opposition.

An expert on Papua at the Australian National University, Chris Ballard, said the suggestion the villagers could have carried out the attacks was "farcical". "These people were obviously never involved," he said. "These recent shootings are far in excess of any of the attacks in the past. They would have required a well- resourced and well-trained unit or units of the security forces... It was never credible that the local community was responsible.

"They stand to gain nothing from these attacks. The arrests were followed almost immediately by a string of further shootings... It should be a source of embarrassment to the Indonesian Government."

The Australian Federal Police, which sent two officers to the region after Mr Grant's shooting, refused to comment on the case. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was monitoring the investigation.

"We remain in close contact with Indonesian authorities on the investigation," a spokeswoman said. "As the shooting occurred in Papua, responsibility for investigating the shooting lies with Indonesian authorities... We are unaware that any arrests have taken place in relation to Mr Grant's murder."

Mr Grant's father, Leigh, said he has received occasional updates from the federal police, which have mainly been based on local media reports.

"I have in the back of my mind that we will probably never find out who it was," he said. "They might say they have caught the people who did it, but who knows if they are the actual people who did the shooting? They're saying it's the indigenous people, but I think it is more likely to be the military or police... We just want to move on and not dwell and get our lives together."

Papuan separatists, who were blamed for an attack in 2002 in which two American teachers and an Indonesian were killed, have publicly denied involvement in the attacks.

A lecturer at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Clinton Fernandes, said the military was probably behind the shootings and was trying to justify its presence in Papua by raising the spectre of a separatist insurgency.

"The Indonesian military need to maintain its presence in Papua and want to ensure that the police no longer try to claim security of the mine area," Dr Fernandes said. "Without an insurgency, the army has to go back into the barracks and reduce its size and its budget and its influence. By staying in West Papua, the military gets access to funds and resources and arms and promotions."

Papuans demand dialog with Indonesian government to curb violence

Jakarta Globe - November 20, 2009

Nurfika Osman – Despite the raft of killings, abductions and other violence carried out by unidentified groups in Papua, the nation's eyes remain elsewhere, an activist said on Thursday.

"Thousands of Papuans have become victims over the years, but we continue to seek a dialog with the central government and we will never stop demanding it," said Markus Haluk, secretary general of the Papua Central Highland Student Association.

He was speaking at a discussion at the Association of Indonesian Catholic Students in Mentang, Central Jakarta, aimed at ending the epidemic of violence through collaboration between the local and central governments.

Markus said the violence, including arson, was being ignored. His organization had recorded 39 murders of Papuans, 645 cases of physical abuse and 151 detentions by police.

He urged the central government to push provincial police to continue investigations into the murders, particularly the killing of Opinus Tabuni in August last year.

Opinus was shot and killed as he attended a celebration of the UN's International Day of the World's Indigenous People in Wamena, Papua on Aug. 9, 2008.

The attack took place after a small number of participants raised the Morning Star, the flag of the West Papuan pro-independence movement, triggering chaos in the middle of the festival.

Thaha Alhamid, secretary general of the Papuan Presidium Council, noted at the discussion that the local government would only succeed in dialog with the central government if it unified its citizens.

"Papuans are divided into groups and religions. We should have one voice for the dialog," Thaha said.

Other speakers at the meeting said that since Papua's integration into the republic in the early 1960s, political conflict and violent attacks against Papuans – including the murder of Papuan Presidium Council chief Theys Eluay in 2001 – had not ceased. The violence was also being spurred by security forces who see Papuans as separatists, the speakers said.

Paskalis Kossay, a member of the House of Representatives Commission I overseeing defense and political affairs, noted that an extreme lack of trust between the central and local administrations remained a stumbling block that was costing Papuans dearly. Paskalis noted that human rights violations had been blighting Papua since the 1960s.

"Since that time, the Papuans have been seen as separatists and will always be targeted in violent attacks. Many of them have been abducted by the military," he said.

Police officers attacked a demonstration being held by members of motorcycle taxi drivers and the Bau Bau Legal Aid Institute in Bau Bau, Papua, last month, injuring six protesters.

Though an internal police inquiry was conducted into the case, a criminal investigation has yet to be launched.

Papuans suspicious of Indonesia repatriation

ABC News - November 20, 2009

Liam Fox, Papua New Guinea – More than 100 people who fled the Indonesian province of Papua to neighbouring Papua New Guinea have returned home.

Several thousand Papuans live in PNG. Some have been here for more than 30 years after fleeing Indonesian rule. Indonesia wants to repatriate about 700 of them.

The Indonesian Embassy in Port Moresby has been offering to repatriate those who want to return home and yesterday two planes carried 140 people from Wewak to Papua's capital Jayapura.

An embassy spokesman has said Indonesian authorities will guarantee the safety of repatriates. The spokesman says they will stay in a "transit centre" for about a week before being settled around the province.

But Freddy Waromi, a Port Moresby-based member of the Papuan separatist group OPM, does not believe anyone who fought for independence will be safe.

"They definitely will be persecuted," he said. "For my group we will never go back until we get independence."

Another plane carrying more repatriates is due to leave Port Moresby on Sunday.

Indonesia urged to free imprisoned flag wavers

Associated Press - November 19, 2009

Jakarta – Indonesia should release three men imprisoned for raising a banned separatist flag because the harsh punishment undermines the country's democratic values, a prominent rights groups said Thursday.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should overturn the prison terms of up to three years handed down last week for using the symbol of a small movement seeking to break from the central government, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said.

"These prosecutions fly in the face of Indonesia's commitments to free expression," said Elaine Pearson of Human Rights Watch. "Yudhoyono should have these men freed without delay."

More than 170 people are currently jailed in Indonesia for peaceful expression, mostly in Papua and Maluku, where there is also a small separatist movement, the group said. Indonesian authorities are highly sensitive to secessionist issues, cracking down on protesters and prohibiting foreign journalists from travel to Papua. Last year, an Indonesian court sentenced a group of separatists to between 10 years and life in prison for waving their flag in front of the president in the Maluku islands.

The three Papuans have been detained since early this year after hoisting a flag resembling the "Morning Star" that is used by the banned Free Papua Movement rebels.

Two other men were charged Wednesday in another flag-raising incident in Papua and could face up to 12 years in prison, said police official Bambang Rudy Pratikno.

A low-level insurgency had waged for decades in Papua, an impoverished province on Indonesia's easternmost tip.

Human Right Watch said more flag-raising ceremonies were expected before Dec. 1, which many Papuans see as an anniversary marking independence from Dutch colonial rule. Pratikno said police were on alert for rallies attended by separatists.

Although Indonesia has made progress in human rights since becoming a democracy more than a decade ago, abuse by the police and military are still a major concern.

Papua New Guinea repatriates Indonesian citizens

Tempo Interactive - November 19, 2009

Cunding Levi, Jakarta – Papua New Guinea repatriated on Thursday 141 Papuans on Thursday as part of the program to return about 700 Indonesian citizens in the Papua New Guinea territory.

The batch of Indonesian Papuans were flown to Jayapura on Thursday in two flights. The first one came from Wiwek which consisted of 68 people arrived at 10:40 am local time (+9GMT). The second flight arrived at 3 pm from Port Moresby carrying 73 people.

One of the repatriates Benyamin Adolf Prawar, 60, said he had been living in Papua New Guinea for 30 years when he was returned, after escaping Irian Jaya, the previous name for Papua province, in 1979 for political reason.

Reportedly tere were about 700 Indonesian Papuans in Papua New Guinea scheduled to be flown back to Indonesia. The remaining batch was scheduled to be flown on November 22.

Director General of the Public Management of the Home Affairs Department Sutrisno, said the returning Indonesian citizens will stay at the Provincial Work Training Center for identification and legal documentation, before being returned to their native areas.

Worst year for West Papua

Post Courier - November 17, 2009

Harlyne Joku – A West Papuan Independence leader in the United Kingdom, Benny Wenda has described 2009 as a vital year for the indigenous people of West Papua.

Mr Wenda, the Chairperson of the Koteka Tribal Assembly based in UK said it is 40 years since the former Indonesian President Suharto announced the result of the so called "Act of Free Choice".

"The claim is outrageous and totally false that 100 per cent of West Papuans wanted to be annexed by Indonesia. 40 years ago all UN members including UK recognised our right to self determination but until now we have never been allowed to exercise our right freely and legally.

"We did not want to become Indonesian in 1969 and after so many years of Indonesian oppression; we certainly do not want to be Indonesia now. We want to be free," he said.

Mr Wenda said that is why West Papua so desperately needs friends from around the world.

He said as an important step forward in international solidarity Andrew Smith MP and Lord Harries of the UK Parliament launched the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP) in October last year.

"We are immensely grateful for the messages of support we received from parliamentarians from every corner of the world and political parties in UK," Mr Wenda said.

Last week in Port Moresby NCD Governor Powes Parkop convened and launched the PNG Charter of the IPWP saying that West Papua's Melanesian brothers and sisters in PNG cannot remain silent on the issue any more.

Mr Parkop said although the PNG government policy on West Papua is that it is an integral issue for Indonesia, PNG leaders like him feel that it is against their conscience to remain silent any longer.

Another MP who signed the charter at a press conference at Parliament last Thursday, Mr Jamie Maxtone Graham said PNG leaders including Mr Parkop and himself will 'shine the spotlight" in the international forum on the West Papua issue especially in relation to Indonesian's military response with brutal force by killing, torturing and imprisoning peaceful Papuan activists.

Mr Graham showed photos of these atrocities sent last month on e-mail to the media.

The Indonesian Embassy was contacted for comment last Thursday but an officer there said most of the senior officials including the Indonesian Ambassador Bom Surijantoe were out of Port Moresby, organising a repatriation of some hundreds of West Papuans who had agreed to return back to their home provinces.

Protesters hoist separatist flag

Jakarta Post - November 17, 2009

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – Former political prisoners raised the separatist bintang kejora (morning star) flag Monday at the Papua People's Council in Jayapura to protest the failure of seven years of special autonomy for the province.

"We say special autonomy has failed," said protest leader Sem Yaru. "If there isn't any improvement, we'd rather demand independence."

The three men and two women hoisted the flag, associated with the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM), on a flagpole at the council building.

The protesters also spoked for around 15 minutes in the council yard. They distributed pamphlets proclaiming "Papua doesn't believe in Jakarta", "Special autonomy has failed" and "Papua demands independence at all cost".

Sem said the flag was a cultural symbol for Papuans, so they had not violated any laws.

The protesters were escorted out of the council compound after their speech, by a 60-strong contingent of Jayapura Police and Papua Police Mobile Brigade officers. They were then taken to the Jayapura Police headquarters.

"The council was not scheduled to meet with these demonstrators," said council spokesperson Angganeta Wally. "They just handed us a notice, but the council leaders are busy working on other things today."

Jayapura Police operations head Adj. Sr. Comr. Dominggus Rumaropen said police had broken up the demonstration because the protesters did not have a permit from the police.

"They didn't give us notice that they'd be holding a demonstration today, so we had to break up the unlawful gathering," he said. "They're currently being questioned by police."

The flag-raising incident, punishable as treason under existing laws, did little to disrupt daily activities in Abepura, Kotaraja and other areas.

Previously, the Manokwari District Court sentenced 11 people to eight months in jail for flying separatist flags in the regency on March 3 and 13, 2008.

The Papua Customary Law Council has drafted a special regulation recommending the bintang kejora be used as the provincial symbol, and has submitted the draft to the Papua People's Representative Council.

Activists want Indonesia to act over Papua rights abuses

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Activists on Monday urged the government to push the police in their stalled investigations of a number of human rights violations in Papua, particularly the murder of Opinus Tabuni, who was killed in August 2008.

Haris Azhar, deputy chairman of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said that nothing significant had been turned up in police investigations into the murder of Opinus, which began last December.

"The government should take a stance in terms of legal enforcement in this case, and other human rights violations," Haris said.

Opinus was shot and killed as he attended a celebration of the United Nations International Day of the World's Indigenous People in Wamena on Aug. 9, 2008.

Shots were fired after a small number of participants raised the Morning Star, the flag of the West Papuan pro-independence movement, triggering chaos in the middle of the festival.

An investigation team from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas-HAM) found that local military and intelligence officers were present at the incident.

Haris also said the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) had received reports of violence perpetrated by police officers against people holding peaceful demonstrations in Papua.

Most recently, he said, police officers attacked a demonstration being held by members of the motorcycle taxi community and the Bau Bau Legal Aid Institute in Bau Bau city, Papua, last month, injuring six protesters.

Though an internal police inquiry is being conducted into the case, Haris said a criminal investigation was necessary.

"Papuans will always be targeted through such violent acts if the attacks are not seriously investigated by security agencies," he said, adding that police needed to complete their investigations into the murder of Opinus as they were obligated to do so.

Ridha Saleh, deputy chairman of Komnas-HAM, agreed, saying on Monday that the police needed to finish their investigations into any human rights violation, particularly the Opinus Tabuni case.

He said Komnas-HAM had already handed over results of its own investigation into the murder, along with the commission's recommendations, to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the National Police.

Separately, Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Christian Zebua said the military would not influence investigations of criminal cases, including those occurring in Papua.

"If evidence is found that a soldier had a hand in the incident, we will respect all legal procedures," Zebua said.

Meanwhile, it was reported that a Morning Star flag flew for 30 minutes in front of the Papuan People's Consultative Assembly in Jayapura on Monday, before the police removed it and arrested three people.

Morning Star flag erected in Indonesia's restive Papua province

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

A Morning Star flag was raised in front of the office of the Papuan People's Consultative Assembly in Jayapura, Papua, on Monday. The flag, which is the symbol of the West Papuan pro- independence movement, flew for thirty minutes.

A number of policemen arrived and took the flag down. They arrested three people from the assembly's office.

Okezone.com reported that the person who erected the flag was allegedly Samuel Yaru, a former political detainee who was imprisoned for rebel activities in 1998.

Samuel said the flag was the assembly's statement that Papua's special autonomy had failed to improve the quality of people's lives. "Papuans are still poor in their own land," he said.

There was no official statement from the police. Papua Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Agus Riyanto was not available for comment.

Kelly Kwalik confirmed not the terrorist in Freeport

Kompas - November 16, 2009

Jayapura – The Papuan Traditional Council (DAP) chief, Forkorus Yobiosembut, in Jayapura, Monday, stated that it was not Kelly Kwalik or his group that committed the series of terrorist acts in the area of PT Freeport Indonesia, Tembaga Pura, Mimika, Papua.

"I've communicated with Kelly, and he said he wasn't the one who did the terror acts," said Forkorus, Monday.

Forkorus explained that after the assault of the mysterious shooter in the area of Freeport Timika, a few months ago, which caused the death of an Australian, Drew Nicholas Grant, he directly asked Kelly Kwalik if he was involved.

"Through his courrier who met me, Kelly Kwalik stressed that he was not involved," he said.

Furthermore, said Forkorus, the courrier said that Kelly Kwalik had sent an official letter to the Government of Australia stating that he and the group he lead weren't responsible for the terrors in Freeport's area.

Subsequently, Forkorus asked all related parties not to accuse each other, but to cooperate to find the truth and apprehend whoever caused the terror in Freeport's area instead. "This is the duty of the security officers and all of us to arrest the mastermind of the terror," he said.

Forkorus' statement concurs with that from the Papua Police Chief, Irjen Bagus Ekodanto, who stated to the reporters that his force had managed to meet the head of the armed force in Timika, Kelly Kwalik.

In that meeting, Kelly Kwalik admitted that he and his group weren't involved in the terror in PT Freeport's area. However, this conflicts the statement from the Cendrawasih XVII Millitary Commander (Pangdam XVII) who presented his material during a debate held by the the Indonesian National Youth Committee (KNPI), in Papua Province, some time ago.

At that time the commander played a video of a fully armed man (said to be Kelly Kwalik) commanding his men to terrorize the Freeport area. That was why the Pangdam stated that Kelly Kwalik's group was responsible for the terror on Freeport's area. (ABI/C17-09)

Human rights/law

Law minister, NGOs slam trial of grandmother for cacao theft

Jakarta Post - November 21, 2009

Agus Maryono, Purwokerto – While many big-time criminals evades justice across the country for corruption, an elderly woman in Banyumas, Central Java, faces the law for stealing three cacao fruits worth only Rp 1,500 (15 US cents) from a plantation.

The trial of 55-year-old Minah at the Purwokerto District Court was condemned Friday by Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar, legal experts and human rights activists.

"It's extremely embarrassing," the minister told kompas.com. "Law enforcers must embrace humanitarian principles."

The court Thursday handed down a suspended sentence of 45 days in prison. The mother of seven and grandmother of more was ordered to serve her jail term should she commit a similar crime within three months of her conviction.

Minah, a resident of Darmakradenan village in Ajibarang district, who stood trial without an attorney, said she took the cacao fruits in September to grow the plant from seeds.

Patrialis said the case inspired him to promote a reform of the country's judicial system. "We will mend the system," the minister said. "Our prisons are overcrowded,"

Minah was not the first citizen to face discriminatory law enforcement in the country.

In September, Aguswandi Tanjung, a tenant at the ITC Roxy Mas Apartments in West Jakarta, was arrested by police for charging his mobile phone in a corridor inside the apartment block. He said the building management had cut off the electricity in his apartment.

In July, the Tangerang District Court convicted 10 children of gambling in a controversial ruling that sparked outrage among child welfare activists, even after the court ordered the juveniles to be returned to their parents.

Sympathizers and activists from a number of NGOs demanded an end to the case against Minah. "What's wrong with this country? The big-time criminals are protected while we villagers are treated mercilessly in the name of law enforcement," Minah's son Firdaus, 40, said.

Minah was charged with stealing the cacao fruits from plantation firm PT Rumpun Sari Antan (RSA). The company had reported the theft to police in August and court proceedings commenced last week.

"The price of the cacao fruits were worth Rp 500 each at the most, but my mother had to stand trial. This is outrageous," Firdaus said.

Prosecutor Noorhaniyah said Minah had stolen cacao fruits weighing 3 kilograms, causing the plantation company to suffer a loss of Rp 30,000, and sentenced her to six months in jail.

Minah said the incident began when she harvested soybeans at her farm in early August. Coincidentally, the land she was cultivating was part of a disputed area managed by the company.

When she was gathering the soybeans, she saw three ripe cacao fruits. She plucked them with the intention to plant their seeds at her farm.

Two company foreman, Tarno and Rajiwa, arrived at the scene. She was later summoned for questioning several times by police following a report from the company.

"I was also examined several times at the prosecutor's office. The prosecutor who examined me asked me not to deny the accusation because it would make things worse," said Minah.

Minah said she was tired of dealing with the police, prosecutors and the court. "I'm old and tired. Why is my case not settled yet? I also owe money for transport to the police and the court," said Minah.

Economic problems force children into prostitution, begging

Jakarta Post - November 21, 2009

Jakarta – Bunga (not her real name) never imagined the nightmare she would go through on her first night as a prostitute in a Malaysian brothel, when she lost her virginity to the highest- paying customer.

"I tried to resist, but he was stronger than me," she recalled. "My experience that first night taught me to submit myself to that humiliating job. I had no choice but to get used to serving these sex consumers for 14 Malaysian ringgit a month," said the tearful 14-year-old.

Bunga was one of five children speaking at a gathering Friday to mark 20 years since Indonesia's ratification of the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Bunga said she ended up in Malaysia after dropping out of school this May to take up an offer from a fellow villager to work at a restaurant in Kuching. She wanted to help support her impoverished family in the remote village near the West Kalimantan capital Pontianak, she said.

Her acquaintance introduced Bunga to an agent in Pontianak, who then took her to Entikong on the Indonesian border with Malaysia, promising her a RM500-a-month job as a waiter in a Malaysian restaurant.

"The agent then took my photo and put it in someone else's passport, with the help of Indonesian immigration officials," she said. "I didn't object to having a fake passport, I just wanted to get a job in a more prosperous country."

Upon arriving on the outskirts of Kuching, the Indonesian agent took her to a brothel that had many other Indonesian girls inside, Bunga said.

After two months of working at the brothel, Bunga got pregnant and was forced by her boss to abort the fetus. Once again she had no say in the matter, she said. "I was traumatized by the heavy bleeding that lasted a long time," she said.

Bunga added she continued working at the brothel, simply because she had no money or opportunity to do anything else Then one day, she went on, she got the chance to make a phone call to her father.

Backed by the National Commission for Child Protection's Pontianak branch office, Bunga's father sought help from the police and the immigration office in Entikong to bring her back home. Her return was finally secured in October, albeit light of four months' wages.

Just like Bunga, 17-year-old Putri, from Indramayu in West Java, ended up working as a prostitute, this time in Jakarta, after taking up an offer from a local acquaintance to work at a big restaurant in the capital.

"I regretted trusting them when I found myself in a brothel, because I could do this back in my hometown if I wanted," she said.

Indramayu is notorious for its red-light districts.

Putri recalled the time her boss got angry with her when she asked to leave.

"She said I owed her lots of money for the recruitment and living costs of the past six months," she said. "I was very disappointed and sad, because I never had the chance to report it to the police station next door."

She also condemned many policemen who paid to have sex with her and never tried to help her escape. She said she eventually escaped after contacting another hometown acquaintance in October.

Fajar (not his real name), 16, had his own story as a busker in the city. He said he had grown up on the streets since he was a little child.

"I make money on the street to pay for my sister's education," he said. "I also give the money to my parents to buy food."

He added his father frequently beat him for not earning enough.

Like Fajar, economic problems also forced Danang, 16, to take to the streets to beg for a living. He said he dropped out of primary school at age 9 and joined a group of street children.

His most memorable experience of that time, he said, was when he and his gang were once accused of stealing money while begging and busking in a bus serving the Blok M-Tanah Abang route.

"I took the rap for my friend and apologized," he said, explaining the stolen money had been found in his friend's pocket.

Child protection commission secretary-general Arist Merdeka Sirait said that fact that children had been forced to go through such experiences was a stain on the government that belied Indonesia's ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child two decades ago.

The commission says 6,295 minors have experienced physical, sexual and mental abuse over the past two years, with most forced to work to support their family. (nia)

In a grandmother's trial, it's judiciary that's found guilty

Jakarta Globe - November 20, 2009

Dessy Sagita& Candra Malik – The case of a grandmother of seven who was charged with stealing three pieces of cocoa fruit and subjected to 18 days of house arrest before being dragged to court to receive a suspended sentence is just further proof of the injustices visited on the poor in this country, human rights activists said on Friday.

"The Indonesian judiciary clearly still ignores anybody with no money, no power and no connections," Nurkholis, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, told the Jakarta Globe on Friday. He was referring to the case of Minah, 55, an illiterate grandmother from a small village near Banyumas in Central Java.

Minah was confused that, after having returned the cocoa fruit to the plantation, owned by PT Rumput Sari Antan, and having apologized profusely, they still reported her to the police

However, she was adamant that she would face the courts and prosecutors' offices even though she had to travel – on several occasions – long distances on foot before catching the bus from Banyumas to get to Purwokerto, initially to face questioning at the Purwokerto Prosecutor's Office and later, as a defendant, at the Purwokerto District Court.

The defendant received a suspended sentence of one month and 15 days and will not serve prison time provided she does not violate the terms of her probation, presiding judge Muslich Bambang Luqmono said during Thursday's court hearing.

As he read the verdict, Muslich reportedly held back tears, and stated that Minah reminded him of his parents, who had been farmers. "This is a small case, but it has hurt so many people," Muslich said of the case, which unleashed an outcry after the general public learned of Minah's treatment.

Nurkholis said it was a sad indictment of the country's legal system. "The court and the prosecutors have behaved preposterously, considering that she made such a small mistake. It is so sad to see that our legal system has lost both its direction and its priorities," he said.

Legal Aid lawyer Kristin Tambunan said injustices like this were an inevitable outcome if the defendant or the suspect was poor.

"Those with money, power and connections, like Anggodo Widjojo, are untouchable. Only the poor suffer," Kristin said, in reference to the brother of fugitive graft suspect Anggoro Widjojo.

Anggodo has said on national television that he "gave" nearly Rp 6 billion ($636,000) to a case broker to "deal with the KPK problem."

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had launched an investigation into Anggoro and his company, PT Masaro Radiokom, in connection with a 2006 Forestry Ministry project alleged to have caused massive state losses.

Anggodo remains free after having made the admission and his brother has managed to flee to Singapore, which has no extradition treaty with Indonesia.

Kristin said Minah's case was not much different from the recent case of 10 boys in Tangerang who were detained by police after they were caught tossing coins near Soekarno-Hatta airport.

The prosecutors in that case insisted the boys were gambling and must be brought to court. Even though they were eventually released, Kristin said, such cases were proof that the law was no friend of the powerless.

The courts are notorious for issuing verdicts that continue to reek of injustice. Another fugitive, Djoko Sugiarto Tjandra, managed to flee to Singapore after the Supreme Court sentenced him to two years for embezzling Rp 546 billion in the Bank Bali scandal.

A former city council chief from Central Java received probation for his part in a Rp 14.8 billion corruption scandal. Wealthy businessman Adiguna Sutowo received only seven years in prison for the fatal shooting of a waiter on New Year's Day in 2005. The list is long.

Shooting against Bima villagers deplored

Jakarta Post - November 20, 2009

Mataram – Dozens of students and local leaders from Bima regency rallied outside the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Police headquarters in Mataram on Thursday to demand a trial of top officers in connection with a shooting incident that left a resident dead and four others injured.

The students, grouped under the Alliance of Youth and People, unfurled banners condemning the police's heavy-handed approach in handling protesters in Monta village, Belo district, Bima, on Wednesday.

NTB Police chief Brig. Gen. Surya Iskandar said he had set up a team to investigate the incident. Surya said the shooting happened when a police patrol was on the way to Ngali village in an effort to break up a brawl between residents of Ngali and Renda village.

Experts urge govt to consider human rights in policy making

Jakarta Post - November 18, 2009

Jakarta – Experts urged the government to consider human rights when making policies to avoid rights violations, and to establish better social conditions in the country.

The Indonesian Institute of Sciences' (LIPI) deputy for social sciences and the humanities, Dewi Fortuna Anwar, said Tuesday that human rights enforcement should begin at the government level to ensure the policy-making process did not violate the constitution and international conventions.

She said consideration for human rights would get better when government officials and legislators acknowledged its importance.

"Legislators need to be educated on human rights to ensure they don't violate laws during the policy-making process," she said during a two-day workshop focusing on the implementation of human rights in Indonesia from a social and human sciences perspective.

The workshop was jointly held by LIPI and UNESCO. The workshop will be followed by an award ceremony Wednesday recognizing young scientists whose studies could provide solutions to human rights problems in the country.

Umar Anggara Jennie, the head of LIPI, said the MOST (Management of Social Transformation) award would be given to encourage and promote respect for human rights and policies for sustainable development.

Dewi urged the National Education Ministry include human rights in school and university curricula.

"People of all ages should know their rights," she said. Indonesia has ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These are enforced domestically through the 1999 Human Rights Law and the 2000 Human Rights Court Law.

Taufik Basari, chairman of the Community Legal Aid Foundation, told the conference the implementation of human rights principles faced issues such as regulations derived from some laws that did not support human rights principles. "There are many bylaws violating human rights principles," he said.

Dewi said the Home Ministry should have guidelines providing clear mechanisms and requirements for drafting bylaws. The ministry has 60 days in which it has the power revoke the drafts of such bylaws before regional administrations endorsed them.

Anies Baswedan, rector of Paramadina University, said the ministry rarely canceled drafts before their endorsement, even if the bylaws clearly violated human rights principles. (nia)

Refugees/asylum seekers

Indonesia backs down on Merak boat people

Sydney Morning Herald - November 19, 2009

Tom Allard in Jakarta and Ben Doherty in Tanjung Pinang – The Indonesian Government has reversed its policy to swiftly deport Sri Lankan asylum seekers refusing to get off a boat in Merak and will now allow the UN to process them, a decision that may prove decisive in ending a five-week stand-off at the port.

A meeting of Indonesian ministries and agencies on Tuesday resolved to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to process all 255 people who came on the boat, said Teuku Faizasyah, the Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman.

The original Indonesian plan was for those who did not already have refugee status to be repatriated; 109 of the Tamils carry refugee cards. Indonesia wants Australia to take many of those who are found to be refugees.

The spokesman for the Sri Lankans at Merak, "Alex", said a guarantee of access to the UNHCR had been a longstanding condition for the passengers to leave the vessel.

But having heard of the deal offered to the 78 people on the Oceanic Viking, they now wanted a similar arrangement.

"We would request the same fair treatment as the 78 people on the Oceanic Viking. If we get the same deal, we will co-operate sooner than them," he said.

It is highly unlikely the Sri Lankans in Merak will be offered the same deal as those on the Oceanic Viking, who will be resettled in four to 12 weeks if their refugee claims are proven to be genuine.

Unlike those on the Oceanic Viking, the asylum seekers in Merak are not on an Australian vessel and were not intercepted by the Australian navy.

Last night all 56 of the Sri Lankans who had stayed on the Oceanic Viking left the vessel. Many smiled and waved as they disembarked to enter immigration detention in Indonesia.

The operation to bring them ashore began yesterday morning with Australian officials, and then Indonesian immigration officers, boarding the ship to conduct health and documentation checks and to confirm they were leaving the ship willingly.

Last night the Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Connor, confirmed all 56 had left the ship, saying among them were 46 men, five women and five children.

He said the men would be taken to the Tanjung Pinang detention centre and the women and children would stay in a separate building while their claims were processed.

One man confirmed they were pleased with the deal offered to this group of asylum seekers by the Australian Government: "They tell us three months in detention, no more. Good." Asked where he wanted to go now he was leaving the Oceanic Viking, he said "to Australia".

The Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, told the Prime Minister to stop treating the Australian people like mugs and admit he had offered a special deal to entice asylum seekers off the Oceanic Viking. By implication, Kevin Rudd was offering all asylum seekers in Indonesia resettlement within four to 12 weeks, Mr Turnbull said, along with housing assistance, medical care, income support and help finding a job.

"Has the Prime Minister sought advice on how many extra boat arrivals will result from this very public weakening of Australia's border protection policies?"

Mr Rudd said the people on board had asked to be processed in Australia and their wishes had been denied from day one.

Indonesia's director of diplomatic security, Dr Sujatmiko, said yesterday Indonesia would not tolerate a similar circumstance to the Oceanic Viking again.

"This is the first and the last. We did not enjoy this sort of incident. These are very complicated issues, and we have to make sure in the future we settle these issues very carefully between Indonesia and Australia."

The Oceanic Viking was expected to begin sailing back to Australia last night.

Dr Sujatmiko, who'd led the Indonesian negotiations with the Sri Lankan asylum seekers, said they were glad to be off the Oceanic Viking "and hoping that Australia will keep its promise. This is our expectation, this is their expectation".

[With Jonathan Pearlman and Yuko Narushima.]

Tamil women, children behind bars in Indonesia

ABC News - November 19, 2009

Ten Sri Lankan women and children who came off the Oceanic Viking yesterday say they are locked up and unable to leave an Australian-funded detention centre in Indonesia.

Holding their young children up to the bars of the facility called a temporary holding room, the women say they are unable to come and go as they please, contradicting claims made by Australian officials.

The Federal Government said there would be a special arrangement for the women and children – that they would not be housed in the detention centre but in a facility nearby.

But the ABC's Indonesia correspondent, Geoff Thompson, says the nearby facility – which has also been referred to as a quarantine area – is no better than the detention centre itself.

Thompson is in Tanjung Pinang and says the women have told him they are sad and want to go to Australia.

"They are outside the wire in the sense that there is this detention centre, built with Australian help, it's a big building right next to it, obviously part of the same structure, but technically with no razor wire around it," he said.

"There is this holding cell where the women and children are but the same bars are on the windows and I don't believe that the conditions inside are any more luxurious than they are inside the main detention centre."

The Federal Government says the accommodation of the asylum seekers is a matter for Indonesian authorities. But Thompson says Indonesia's patience with Australia is running out.

"We heard very clearly last night from Dr Sujatmiko – the chief negotiator here – that this is the first time and the last time something like this has happened, and frankly I think Indonesia thinks that these people are now in detention," he said.

"That's where they will be until they say Australia honours its promise to get them out of Indonesia within a month or no longer than three months."

On average, asylum seekers remain in detention in Indonesia for 52 weeks, but Thompson says he has met some who have spent nearly 10 years behind bars.

"I've also met asylum seekers who've spent five or six years and they know people who've been here for nine years before they resettled," he said.

The Indonesian government expects the Oceanic Viking asylum seekers to be out of Indonesia within four to 12 weeks, based on promises made by the Australian Government.

"[The asylum seekers] are very glad to disembark from the vessel, hoping that Australia keep the promise to come to Australia," Dr Sujatmiko said.

"This is their expectation and the Indonesian government expectation. [They will go to] Australia or other countries. We'll come back to Australia to keep the promise. After the deadline, out from Indonesia."

But Immigration Minister Chris Evans says there is no guarantee the asylum seekers will come to Australia and it will be up to the UNHCR to decide how many of the group do come.

Indonesia draws up plan to force Sri Lankans home

Sydney Morning Herald - November 16, 2009

Tom Allard, Jakarta – Indonesia is planning to deport Sri Lankan asylum seekers at Merak, including "Alex", the English-speaking spokesman for the group that has spent more than a month at the Javanese port refusing to leave their vessel.

A senior Government source said Indonesia was losing patience with the asylum-seekers and they must leave. If necessary it was prepared to force many of the 255 Sri Lankans on to a navy warship to return them to the country they fled amid claims of persecution by the Sinhalese-dominated Government.

The deportation plan marks a significant hardening in Indonesia's policy towards irregular immigrants, and undermines the so-called "Indonesia solution" and Australia's hopes to negotiate a framework where both countries agree on a method of intercepting and processing boat people.

"They have to be sent back to their country," said Brigadier General Bachtiar Tambunan, the director of transnational crime with Indonesia's police.

Gatot Subroto, head of the law enforcement unit at the Immigration Department, said "[Indonesia's Department of Foreign Affairs] was "working on deporting them".

It is understood the negotiations with Sri Lanka's embassy involve the forced repatriation of about 130 asylum-seekers in Merak who do not carry proof from the United Nations that they are genuine refugees.

Those already considered refugees would likely be resettled, and Indonesia has been pressuring Australia to take many of them. But the remainder will be thrown in detention and are unlikely to be granted access to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Instead, they will be processed by Indonesia and then sent home.

Among those in the sights of Indonesian authorities is "Alex", the bearded spokesman who later revealed he spent most of his life in Canada, became a gang member there and was deported after serving a prison term.

Sri Lanka has accused Alex – whose real name is Sanjeev Kuhendrarajah – of being a people smuggler, an accusation he vehemently denies but one Indonesian authorities are taking seriously.

The saga at Merak, which pre-dates the stand-off on the Oceanic Viking taking place further north, was triggered when Kevin Rudd phoned the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, pleading for the boat to be intercepted before it reached Australia.

Ever since, the Sri Lankans have refused to disembark, at first threatening to blow the boat up, then insisting on being taken to Australia, before modifying their demands to have access to the UNHCR.

According to a briefing from a senior Government source familiar with the negotiations with Sri Lanka, Indonesia was losing patience.

"Some of them cannot be accepted here, we want to deport them back to their country. We are still negotiating it. They have entered our country illegally. They have no rights to stay here. We must repatriate them," he said. "We are prepared to use our navy to take them back to Sri Lanka, although that's the worst case scenario."

Labour/migrant workers

Thousands in Central Java rally for decent wages

Jakarta Post - November 21, 2009

Suherdjoko, Semarang – Thousands of workers staged a rally at the Central Java gubernatorial office on Thursday demanding that minimum wages in 2010 be raised to meet the cost of decent living standards (KHL) in the region.

The workers, affiliated with the Indonesian Labor Union Federation and the National Labor Union, arrived from various areas and companies on trucks, cars and motorcycles.

They displayed posters with messages such as, "Wages must be set according to decent living needs", and "To live and die reasonably".

Protest coordinator Fajar Utomo said that only three of the 35 regencies and mayoralties in Central Java had set their minimum wages based on the KHL survey, while based on the gubernatorial decree on minimum wages in regencies and municipalities in 2010, the percentage of wages had only reached 91.73 percent of KHL.

"That's why the governor must revise this decision. The amount of workers' wages should equal the amount recommended in the KHL survey. This is the bottom line and we don't want to negotiate any longer," said Fajar.

The survey conducted by the Central Java remuneration council shows the average amount of next year's KHL for regencies and municipalities in the province is Rp 801, 201 per month, while their determined minimum wage is only Rp 734,874 on average.

Thousands of workers in Semarang also held a similar rally on Nov. 11. They rejected the city's minimum wage (UMK) proposed by the Semarang mayor of Rp 893,000 in 2010, instead demanding Rp 944,538.

They argued the mayor's UMK proposal was not in line with the recommendation from the KHL survey by the Semarang remuneration council. Their demand was finally accepted and the UMK for Semarang was raised to Rp 940,000 per month.

Hundreds of workers in Tegal, Central Java were also protesting about insufficient wages on Thursday. "The 2010 KHL for Tegal is Rp 798,000 per month, but only Rp 700,000 has been agreed for the city's minimum wage," protest leader Slamet Hidayat told Antara state news agency.

He said the set wage for Tegal workers was not in line with the economic growth and inflation, which reached 6 percent. Under the 2003 Manpower Law, Slamet argued, minimum wages must equal KHL by taking the inflation rate into account.

Employers in Tegal proposed the wage be set at only Rp 650,000, but the amount was later agreed at Rp 700,000, an increase of Rp 89,000 from the 2009.

Thousands demand better wages in Central Java

Jakarta Post - November 19, 2009

Suherdjoko, Semarang, Central Java – Thousands of workers staged a rally in front the Central Java Gubernatorial Office in Semarang on Thursday, demanding the administration regulate the minimum wage to be consistent with the latest cost of living.

Waving posters, the workers came from areas across the province travelling on trucks and other vehicles.

Fajar Utomo, a coordinator of the rally, told The Jakarta Post that of all 35 regencies and municipalities in Central Java, only three has regulated the minimum wage in accordance with the current living costs as stipulated in a survey.

Fajar said they demanded the City Minimum Wage (UMK) in 2010 to be set at Rp 944,528 (around US$100), the appropriate living cost according to the survey.

The administration had previously set the 2010 at Rp 893,000, before it was revised to Rp 940,000 following demands from workers. Fajar, however, said the workers would not be satisfied unless the administration set the UMK to meet living costs.

Government told to stop sending unskilled workers

Jakarta Post - November 19, 2009

Jakarta – The government should cease sending low-skilled labor abroad to prevent the continued abuse of Indonesian migrant workers by their employers, a coalition of civil society groups said here Wednesday.

Pranoto Iskandar, founder of the Institute for Migrant Rights, said Wednesday that low-skilled migrant workers did not have sufficient knowledge about their rights.

Therefore, he said, many of them were mistreated, resulting in numerous cases of physical abuse and death.

"The government has treated them as moneymakers that provide remittances to their home country," he said during his presentation on migrant workers at the office of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in Jakarta.

He said the government would find it impossible to prevent low- skilled workers from going abroad an, as they provided significant foreign gains, while the government could not provide them with employment opportunities.

Anis Hamidah, executive director of Migrant Care, recently predicted the country received foreign exchange gains of Rp 183 trillion (US$19.17 billion) from migrant workers in 2008, up from Rp 164 trillion last year.

According to the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, there are currently around 4 million Indonesian citizens working abroad.

Data from the Office of the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare shows that 2 million migrant workers were employed in Malaysia in 2008, comprising of 1.2 million legal workers and 800,000 illegal workers.

Pranoto said that most unskilled workers were not members of labor unions and therefore did not have access to much-needed legal protection.

"Labor unions provide education for workers regarding their rights, including how to obtain salaries, holidays and leave," he said.

He added that a formation of labor unions with direct connections to the destination countries of migrant workers should be formed, as most labor unions had not yet established such networks.

He added the country should implement principles derived from the Global Commission on International Migration, which was launched by the UN in 2005.

The principles consist of various points as a result of regional hearings, stakeholder consultations and expert meetings. "The Philippines and Mexico have started implementing them for their migrant workers," he said.

Indonesia is a signatory of the 1990 UN Convention on Migrant Workers, but has not yet ratified it. He argued that Indonesia should not wait for the ratification to implement the principles stated in the commission's report.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar, said recently that he would work toward the ratification of the UN convention within the next five years. It will be up to the House of Representatives to ratify the convention.

Pranoto also demanded the government stop the operational activities of the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Overseas Labor (BNP2TKI). During its two years of operation, he added, the agency had never protected migrant workers in their destination countries.

"Migrant workers need protection and education," he said, adding the agency had not provided sufficient skills-based training for migrant workers.

The agency is currently involved in a battle with the Manpower Ministry and the Foreign Ministry to be granted greater authority.

However, the agency's chairman, Jumhur Hidayat, said that he had initiated improvements by minimizing extortion practises that have affected many migrant workers at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta. (nia)

Gloomy labor, social trends in Indonesia, warns ILO

Jakarta Post - November 18, 2009

Jakarta – Despite some progress in coping with the impacts of the global financial crisis, labor and social trends in the country this fiscal year will likely remain gloomy, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has warned.

Speaking at a discussion and a book launch about the 2009 labor and social trends in Indonesia here Tuesday, ILO economist Kazutoshi Chatani said the government should immediately provide social protection for unskilled and semi skilled workers, especially for those who had not been included in the government's pro-employment programs.

Due to the stagnant growth of the formal sector affected by the global crisis, a part of the labor force, mainly dismissed workers, returned migrant workers and job seekers, have been entering the informal sector where they are not insured, he said.

The global economic downturn, which has rocked Europe, the Middle East and Asia since late last year, has forced foreign employers to terminate hundreds of thousands of jobs held by Indonesian migrant workers, while falling orders have forced many processing companies at home to rationalize the size of their labor.

However, Chatani said that due to the government's stimulus package, tax rebate, labor-intensive infrastructure development projects and soft loans for SMEs, as a rapid response to the crisis, more than four million jobs had been created.

The government also increased the allocation of the state budget for poverty alleviation program. This fiscal year, it allocated Rp 66 trillion to lower poverty, up from Rp 58 trillion disbursed in 2008.

It has also allocated Rp 369 billion for job training, Rp 110 billion for training in the labor-intensive sector and Rp 30 billion to bolster labor networking, in a bid to upgrade worker competence and competitiveness as well as create decent employment and wages.

Chatani also called on the government to keep holding social dialogues with social partners such as labor unions, employers and international agencies to seek peaceful settlements to industrial disputes and avoid social unrest.

Unionists expressed pessimism the government would provide social protection for the unemployed and economically disadvantaged over the next five years.

"The appointment of politician Muhaimin Iskandar as new manpower minister is a strong indication the President does not see labor as a crucial issue that has to be dealt with immediately," said the chairman of the Indonesian Workers Organization (OPSI) Saepul Tavip, adding the 2004 National Social Security System Law had been not been properly enforced.

Chairman of the State-owned Enterprises Employees Union (FSP BUMN), Abdul Latief Algaf, was skeptical about the unemployment benefits, saying the government had yet to show its commitment to protecting workers as only 8.7 million of 30 million workers in the formal sector were insured by social security programs (Jamsostek).

Deputy chairman of the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) Djimanto said the government should allocate a part of the state budget to finance social security for the unemployed and encourage employers to provide a better severance scheme for dismissed workers in the country.

One million workers sacked, made non-active members: Jamsostek

Jakarta Post - November 17, 2009

Nani Afrida, Jakarta – During the year ending September 2009, more than 1 million people have joined the state workers' insurance firm PT Jamsostek's list of non-active members as the impact of the global economic downturn has triggered job losses and dismissals.

Non-active members mean they no longer have regular income to pay the monthly premium, but are still entitled to Jamsostek's benefits such as pension fund payments.

With these figures, total non-active members as of September reached 19 million, up from 17.9 million from the same period last year, said Jamsostek president director Hotbonar Sinaga on Monday. By contrast, members of Jamsostek listed as active in the same period stood at 8.2 million.

"Many companies had to lay off their employees after their businesses were hit by the global economic crisis," Hotbonar told reporters after a hearing in the House of Representatives in Jakarta.

The global economic downturn is slowing down Indonesia's economy, estimated to grow by 4.3 percent this year – appreciably slower than the 6.1 percent growth recorded a year earlier during 2008.

Dismissals have mostly occurred in labor-intensive, export- oriented manufacturing companies weakened by the fall in the demand for exports. "Only active members pay their routine premiums while the rest could not pay their premiums because they have no jobs," he said.

Jamsostek collects premiums from its members until retirement age, and in return covers payments for accidents, health costs and pensions.

Commenting on the benefits of laid-off workers, Hotbonar said that even when still aged below 55, they are entitled to cash from their pension fund as long as they have been a member for at least five years.

But for those with less than five-years membership behind them, they cannot cash in their allowances but the amount contributed will be accrued once they get another job.

However, Hotbonar refused to go into details as to how much in claims the company had to pay out for these non-active members. "We predict that the total claims for pension benefit could increase by 20 percent compared to last year," Hotbonar said.

Previous reports showed that as of September, Jamsostek had paid Rp 5.39 trillion (about US$576 million) in total pension benefits and Rp 4.37 trillion in other benefits.

Meanwhile, Jamsostek also reported that its funds invested in bonds, stocks, deposits, mutual funds and others now totaled Rp 77 trillion, higher than the full-year target of Rp 72 trillion.

"Bonds contributed 46 percent or Rp 35.46 trillion of the total invested funds," Jamsostek investment director Elvyn G Masyasya said.

Environment/natural disasters

Greenpeace rallies to stop deforestation in Indonesia

Agence France Presse - November 21, 2009

Jakarta - Hundreds of Greenpeace activists rallied Saturday in support of a commitment by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation.

About 200 people rallied in the capital displaying banners that said "Enough, stop destroying our forests" and "Stop talking, start acting".

"We urge SBY to keep his promise in reducing emissions, especially from deforestation," Greenpeace Southeast Asia forest campaigner Yuyun Indradi said, referring the president by his initials. "He promised to reduce emissions of up to 41 percent," Indradi said.

Yudhoyono said at the G20 summit in the US city of Pittsburgh in September that Indonesia had decided on a national climate change action plan that would reduce its emissions by 26 percent by 2020.

Yudhoyono added that Indonesia could reduce emissions by as much as 41 percent with international assistance. "We also want to support the act from our fellow activists in Riau province... to stop the destruction of peatlands in the area," Indradi said.

Riau, on Sumatra island, is where most of the deforestation is taking place in Indonesia.

Rampant deforestation, which makes ways for palm oil and acacia plantation areas, makes Indonesia the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitters, according to some estimates.

Journos condemn expulsion from Indonesia

Agence France Presse - November 19, 2009

Foreign journalists based in Indonesia have condemned the deportation of two reporters from Italy and India who had covered a recent Greenpeace demonstration.

Raimundo Bultrini of the Italian l'Espresso weekly and Kumkum Dasgupta, an editor with the Hindustan Times, were forced to leave the country yesterday, The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club (JFCC) said in a statement.

"The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club is deeply concerned about the detention and deportation of two foreign journalists who were reporting on a Greenpeace protest against deforestation in Indonesia," it said.

"Free reporting and movement of the media should be protected as a cornerstone of democracy. We strongly protest the apparent violation of press freedom and request immediate clarification from immigration authorities."

Police detained the journalists and questioned them for several hours on Monday after they tried to report on uncontrolled deforestation in Pelalawan district, Sumatra island.

They were told they would be deported for failing to obtain local permission to be in the area, but the JFCC said there was no such requirement.

"Local immigration officials say the two had obtained journalist visas from national authorities... By obtaining the visas they showed their respect for Indonesian laws and regulations," it said.

"We at the JFCC would like to know on what grounds the two journalists were expelled. What exactly were their 'illegal activities' and on which law or regulation were the deportations based?"

The Reporters Without Borders media rights watchdog said on Tuesday it "deplores" the arrests and accused police of acting on behalf of powerful pulp and paper companies.

"These arbitrary arrests of accredited journalists are unacceptable. Do we have to point out that the police are not supposed to take their orders from industrial conglomerates?" it said in a statement.

Greenpeace calls on President to halt deforestation

Jakarta Post - November 19, 2009

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – Greenpeace Southeast Asia has sent a letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono calling on him to stop deforestation to meet his commitment to cut Indonesia's CO2 emissions.

The letter was sent following the Tanjung Kampar incident in Riau in which the Pelalawan Police and Pekabaru immigration office deported foreign Greenpeace activists and journalists from the Greenpeace Climate Defenders Camp in Riau.

"Our message is that it is time for Yudhoyono to punish [those responsible for] deforestation, not climate defenders who support the government's commitment to slashing emissions from forests," Greenpeace forest campaigner Yuyun Indradi said Wednesday.

He said Yudhoyono needed to take tough action to protect the Semenanjung Kampar area as it was a unique wetland, dozens of meters deep in places, with the capacity to sequester billions of tons of CO2.

Yuyun added that four international activists from Belgium, Germany, India and Italy were detained by the police Monday.

On Tuesday, Pelalawan Police handed over two foreign Greenpeace activists and two journalists to the Pekanbaru immigration office, to be deported to their respective countries for alleged visa violations.

Indian journalist Kum Kum and Italian journalist Raimondo Bultrini, work for the Hindustan Times and El Expresso respectively.

"Sir, in the interest of the environment and human rights, we call upon your office to please step in and stop these repressive actions by the police and immigration office against Greenpeace activists who are only carrying out peaceful activities within local communities to help expose and stop illegal forest destruction in Riau, in support of your commitment to reduce emissions," the letter said.

"Such actions can only run counter to your government's interests and threaten to harm the country's reputation as a vibrant democracy," it continued.

Two Greenpeace activists have been charged by Pelalawan Police for alleged disorderly conduct causing inconvenience to pulp and paper mill PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP).

Greenpeace lawyer Susilaningtyas said police were still questioning the two activists - Ejie Anugrah Romadoh and Bustar Maitar – as of Wednesday afternoon.

"They were questioned as suspects and have been charged with disorderly conduct," Susilaningtyas told news portal tempointeraktif.com.

Pelawan Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ary Rachman confirmed the charges. "We questioned them following a report filed by RAPP," he said.

So far, 23 activists have been named as suspects after staging a protest against the pulp and paper firm last Wednesday.

Dianningsih Antono, president of April Indonesia, which owns RAPP, said his company used environmentally friendly methods in managing the Semenanjung Kampar area.

"The plantation ring developed by RAPP was designed as a buffer zone to protect the peatland in Tanjung Kampar," Dianningsih said in a statement Wednesday.

Yudhoyono has promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent by 2020 from the energy and forestry sectors. He pledged to further cut emissions by 41 percent by 2020 if developed countries gave financial support to assisit Indonesia to do this.

Indonesia contains the world's third-largest expanse of forests with about 120 million hectares of tropical forests.

Foreign reporters, activist detained in Riau

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

Budi Otmansyah & Fidelis E Satriastanti – Police in Riau's Pelalawan district arrested two foreign journalists and a Belgian Greenpeace activist on Monday, saying that they had not provided authorities with the proper paperwork.

Raimondo Bultrini, an Italian reporter from la Repubblica newspaper, and a journalist identified as Kumkum from India's Hindustan Times were arrested by the Pelalawan Police on Monday afternoon along with Belgian national Tom Keunen.

"We secured three foreign nationals, two journalists and a Greenpeace activist, for questioning at the Pelalawan Police headquarters," said Adj. Chief Comr. Ari Rahman Nafarin, the district police chief. "They then will be asked to fill in all the required documents for reporting in Riau."

Ari said the foreigners did not have the required permits needed from the National Police and the Ministry of Communication, such as a letter to report to local authorities and a permit for working and reporting.

"They have been asked to complete the paperwork so they can stay at the Greenpeace camp on the Kampar River. The arrests were conducted by the book," he said.

Both journalists, Ari acknowledged, had reported to the Pelalawan Police station on Monday, but left without providing the required documents.

Meanwhile, Keunen reportedly only had his passport and a temporary visit visa. "He stayed at a local resident's house in Meranti Bay," Ari said. "The presence of a foreigner in a local village is certainly questionable, and we only carried out the required procedures."

The three detainees were accompanied by Greenpeace legal counselor Susila Ningtias and an interpreter. "They were only asked for information," Ari said, "if they complete their paperwork, we surely will let them go."

Greenpeace Southeast Asia's spokesman Zamzami said four police officers had used force to arrest Keunen. He said police had entered Greenpeace's makeshift climate defenders' camp without showing an arrest warrant or satisfactorily explaining their actions.

"Tom was nabbed by force to the police headquarters, while the arrested foreign journalists were also nabbed on their way to Pangkalan Bunut, Pelalawan," he explained.

Authorities have already ordered the deportation of 11 foreign Greenpeace activists and detained 21 Indonesians from the group. They had taken part in a rally at a forest area recently cleared for a timber estate to supply a pulp and paper factory in the provine.

Meanwhile, the new minister of forestry, Zulkifli Hasan, denied allegations that action was being taken against Greenpeace. He said that the company clearing the forest had all the necessary paperwork, including a recommendation from the local governor.

"If a national company is proven guilty of any violations, we will act," he said. "But if not, then it could disrupt investment in Indonesia."

Zulkifli also said that he had received reports that the environmental organization had tried to film their extreme protest actions to show at next month's UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen. "It was like a movie scenario. They were strapping themselves to the excavators, but when it rained, they took off," he said.

Separately, the British government has announced that it will assist Indonesia to achieve its ambitious goal of reducing carbon emissions by 41 percent. It also vowed to gather further support for Indonesia from other developed nations.

"We would like to help the Indonesian government realize its target on carbon emission reduction," said Joan Ruddock, Britain's minister for energy and climate change.

"It is in accord with the statement by the Indonesian president, who has an ambitious target of reducing carbon emissions by 26 percent [by 2020], and by 41 percent with the support of the international community."

Speaking after attending a meeting in Pekanbaru with a local NGO about deforestation in Riau, Ruddock said her visit to the region had nothing to do with the issue surrounding Greenpeace.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced the lofty voluntary emissions targets at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh in September.

Women & gender

With domestic violence on the rise, women's group takes stand

Jakarta Globe - November 20, 2009

Nurfika Osman – Anew book by the National Commission on Violence Against Women should be used as a tool by judges, prosecutors and police in dealing with women's issues, a Supreme Court official said on Friday.

"The fact that there are many cases of violence against women shows that the legal tools in the country are not effective," said Artidjo Alkotsar, the Supreme Court's deputy head for criminal cases, at the launch of the book, titled "Reference on Handling Cases of Violence Against Women in Civil Courts."

Alkotsar said the country's Criminal Code showed a lack of concern for victims. "The Criminal Code came into effect in 1981 and protects the rights of suspects and defendants more than those of victims," he said.

Kamala Chandrakirana, chairwoman of the commission, also known as Komnas Perempuan, said the book was a response to the rising number of reported cases of violence against women. She said the number of reported cases of domestic violence against women rose from 25,522 in 2007 to 54,425 in 2008, an increase of 113 percent.

According to Kamala, once they entered the criminal justice system, victims faced numerous time-consuming and costly hurdles in their search for justice. She said the process often left women feeling like they had been victimized all over again.

"During the process, the victim must attend court or meet the person who abused them. Yet they are in no condition to do so," she said. "They need to recover from the trauma."

She said many cases of domestic violence went unreported because women did not want to put themselves through the legal process.

More than 50 percent of women who have filed domestic violence charges with the East Jakarta Police's Women and Children Protection Unit this year eventually dropped their complaints. In Depok the figure is 70 percent and in Yogyakarta it is 90 percent.

Kamal Sofyan Nasution, the deputy attorney general for general crimes, said the country's legal system deserved some of the blame for the problem of violence against women.

"This has come about because the civil law system in the country doesn't give husbands and wives equal status, and also because of the feudalistic characteristics of our customs," Nasution said.

Abuse of women rising in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

Eras Poke – Cases of women being abused in East Nusa Tenggara continued to rise, the head of the province's women's empowerment bureau said on Monday.

Yovita Mitak said that 1,580 cases were reported across the province from 2005 to this year, which was part of a worrying national trend.

She said that according to the Pulih Foundation, an advocacy group for victims of violence, there had been a significant increase in cases of violence against women.

According to figures from the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), 14,020 cases were reported nationally in 2004. However, that figure almost quadrupled by 2008, reaching 54,425.

The figures are widely acknowledged as representing only a fraction of the real incidence of abuse cases, with the rise reflecting women's increased willingness to come forward to report violence.

Cases of violence reported to the authorities, Yovita said, occurred in a variety of forms, including physical, mental and sexual abuse as well as trafficking and abandonment.

She said the national mentality emphasized the importance of men in almost every aspect of life, and that women were compelled to do what they were told.

Yovita said the bureau was also critical of a number of laws that were biased against women, particularly those concerning divorce.

Marriage law reform will require long walk down the aisle

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

Nurfika Osman – Linda Amalia Sari, state minister for women's empowerment and child protection, acknowledged on Monday that the Law on Marriage and nuptials under Islamic law discriminated against women, but that legislative reforms would require broad discussion given the potential to create conflict.

"Our country still holds strong social and cultural prejudices against women," the new minister told the Jakarta Globe on the sidelines of a workshop in Jakarta on the elimination of discrimination against women. "This kind of mindset, shared by many people, including officials, is the barrier."

Linda said, however, that "deep and comprehensive analysis is needed to change the law and we need to communicate this with many parties." "It's not as simple as just changing any law, we have to consider many things."

Activists say the laws contain a number of provisions that discriminate against women, including the marriage of minors to men and provisions on polygamy allowing men to take as many as four wives.

Linda said wholesale revisions or amendments to the Marriage Law, enacted in 1974, could cause conflict in society, adding that the law had not been amended due to social and cultural prejudices.

"The law is discriminative and we are pushing for a ministerial decree to save women," she said. "At least a ministerial decree will fix the discriminating laws."

Nasaruddin Umar, the director general for mass guidance on Islam at the Religious Affairs Ministry, also conceded that Islamic law governing marriage for women was not serving their interests.

He said that the ministry was currently drafting a law for the Religious Court on Marriage, which will deal with marriage to minors and other issues. "We hope the law will decrease the number of minor marriages and the existing gender gap," Umar said.

He said that the ministry has commanded marriage registry offices (KUA) in the country to verify couples' information before permitting unions.

"We have asked them to look at such things as age because marrying minors is wrong and brings a gender gap [based on the power of the senior partner – the male] in the marriage," Umar said, adding that the ministry has given its parameters to KUA officials.

Agriculture & food security

Farmers face challenges of climate change in Indonesia

Jakarta Globe - November 18, 2009

Emmy Fitri – Farmer Kamsari Turahim, from Santing, Indramayu in West Java, said he could no longer rely on the traditional patterns of rice cultivation because the rain was now much less predictable and the dry seasons lasted longer than ever.

For Kamsari, the old ways of working, where farmers planted their seedlings in mid-November and harvested the crop after about 115 days, are no longer the norm.

Over the last three years, Kamsari said, farmers in his village have seen crops fail because downpours occurred in the middle of the rice season and the rainwater soaked the young plants, devastating the farmers' hope for a decent return on their seasonal Rp 3 million ($320) investment.

"For three seasons we've been forced to harvest earlier than normal, which means we've been getting a poor quality of rice. Our income has decreased by more than 50 percent," he said.

In an effort to be better able to predict the changing weather, the farmers are combining their own knowledge and skills with modern technology.

The farmers came up with a simple method to measure rainwater volume. They took some used tin cans, each the size of an average bucket, nailed them to wooden rods and placed them in the middle of their paddy fields.

"The cans have to be placed in the open, with no trees or other structures nearby," Kamsari said of his humble invention, which he affectionately calls "teknologi kaleng," or "tin-can technology."

By using the cans, farmers can more accurately keep track of rain patterns, which gives them early warning signs of possible flooding.

The Netherlands government has also chipped in, supplying the Indramayu farmers with sensors to measure soil humidity.

The farmers started using the sensors in early October, placing them in 50 locations around the paddy fields, covering a total area of 200 square meters.

"Getting the right measurements for the weather, soil humidity and the rainwater volume gives us a better idea of the best time to begin planting," Kamsari said.

The World Bank, in a 2007 report titled "Indonesia and Climate Change: Current Status and Policies," said that the country is vulnerable to climate change, which impacts mainly through prolonged droughts and unseasonal heavy downpours and floods.

The report said that global warming could increase temperatures and shorten yet intensify the rainy season.

These conditions, according to the report, could lead to changes in water supply and soil moisture, which would negatively impact agriculture and therefore food security. Climate change is also likely to reduce soil fertility by 2 percent to 8 percent, resulting in fluctuating rice yields, it said.

Global warming will also cause sea levels to rise, the report said, inundating productive coastal zones and reducing farming in these communities.

Be a free-range chicken

The government, according to Gatot Irianto, the head of research and development at the Agriculture Ministry, has anticipated the impacts of climate change in the agricultural sector by, in the case of rice crops, preparing rice species better able to resist abnormal weather patterns.

The ministry has introduced at least three species of paddy that can survive at least a week of flooding. "Ideally the paddy should be able to tolerate more than a week as it sometimes takes weeks for the water to recede," Gatot said.

But most important, he said, farmers must have a "healthy" attitude toward changes that are often beyond their control. He praised the efforts of the Indramayu farmers who are trying to cope with the shifting conditions by using their simple invention.

"Don't be a broiler chicken, be an ayam kampung [free-range chicken]," he said, explaining that ayam kampung are fighters and survivors. "Broiler chickens, on the other hand, are handfed and find it hard to adjust to new environments."

Gatot said that compared to farmers in Africa, Indonesian farmers were lucky. He cited the 900 millimeters of rain Indonesia received each year, "enough water to irrigate the rice fields, unlike Tunisia, which only gets 300 millimeters per year."

He was speaking at a recent workshop on "people and adaptation to climate change," which was jointly organized by the Civil Society Forum for Climate Justice and Oxfam.

One of the problems with climate change, Gatot said, is that it can't be generalized because its impacts are unique in each region. Farmers in regions that get more rain than before need to plant rice that is resistant to floods, while in regions that experience longer dry spells than in the past, rainwater catchments have to be constructed.

"We can't use the same theories on weather and planting that our ancestors used because things are changing," he said. "It's better to rely on technologies, if there are any, or other innovations, both big and small."

Though farmers have been urged to leave behind farming traditions that date back centuries, Gatot said his office was trying to put together a database of best practices from "local geniuses," which may be able to be replicated in other areas.

As an example, he cited the "subak," or Balinese traditional irrigation system. "The Balinese irrigation system is a good example," Gatot said. "It is integrated with their social and cultural systems."

Despite the challenges, Gatot remains optimistic, saying that if urbanites continue eating rice three times a day, "farmers can still work and still hope."

"I have long believed that one thing is certain about climate change – everything becomes uncertain. And it is us who need to adjust to the new conditions."

Health & education

National exams are failing Indonesia's students, educator says

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

Dessy Sagita – Allowing students who fail national exams to retake the tests will not resolve the problem of rampant cheating, a noted education expert said on Monday.

Utomo Danajaya, a director at Paramadina University's Institute of Educational Reform in South Jakarta, expressed his doubts over plans by the National Education Standardization Agency (BSNP) to arrange for students who failed or missed national exams to be given a second chance. He said this was not the best option to guarantee "honest" national exam grades and secure higher pass rates.

Mungin Eddy Wibowo, a member of the agency, said on Monday that students who failed deserved to be given a second chance to pass the exams.

"We want to give them the hope that if they fail the exam, they will still be able to fix this," Mungin said, adding that national exams were intimidating and a cause of extreme frustration for students, with some going as far as attempting to commit suicide.

He said with so much emphasis put on the national exams, many student felt they had to cheat in order to secure a passing grade.

Cheating scandals have been a part of the national exams for years. The most recent one, in June, is believed to have involved thousands of students across the country.

Utomo, however, said that allowing students to retake exams would not guarantee an end to the cheating. "I am betting that in spite of the resits, rampant cheating will still happen because this is something that is deeply entrenched in the structure of our education system," he said.

Utomo said the national exams put the students, their parents and teachers under a tremendous amount of stress, to the extent that students were willing to do anything to pass, including making arrangements to systematically cheat. "This is exactly what happened in last June's scandal," Utomo said.

In this recent scandal, university supervisors for the exams discovered that an estimated 5,000 students from 36 high schools had given the exact same incorrect answers to national examination questions.

The supervisors suspected the students had used incorrect answer keys supplied by unidentified sources, possibly with assistance from teachers or school administrators. The BSNP eventually annulled the first national exam results for the students involved and organized makeup tests.

Utomo said as long as national exams were considered the only measure to determine whether or not a student deserved to graduate, dishonesty and frustration would always be a part of education in the country.

He said national exams should be used only as a tool to measure the quality of education. Exams, he said, should be taken by students in the early years of high school and not toward the end.

"It would be better if the national exams were taken by students in the first or second year of high school," Utomo said. "They should know that the exams are given as a measure of the education standards they can expect at the school. Graduating from high school should be determined by those teaching at the school, and not the state."

According to data from the BSNP, the state senior high school passing rate this year was 91.4 percent, or 3.7 percentage points lower than the 95.1 percent pass rate for private schools. In the 2008 national exams, the state senior high school pass rate was 88.9 percent while private schools achieved 92.9 percent.

Indonesia's national high school final examinations are renowned for their failure to gauge a student's preparedness for university education, as stated in earlier press reports. Because of rampant cheating, the credibility of the national exams have been thrown further into doubt.

Meanwhile, every year, thousands of students take part in state university entrance exams.

Minister of Education Mohammad Nuh wants to phase out these university entrance exams and instead use the national high school final exams as the sole barometer for entry into tertiary education.

By 2012, under the proposed plan, high school students would only have to present their high school national final exam scores to apply for university.

Bank Century inquiry

SBY: 'Nothing to hide' in Bank Century, KPK cases

Jakarta Globe - November 22, 2009

Antara & Nivell Rayda – Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono does not want to cut off probes into the the controversies surrounding Bank Century and suspended antigraft officers Chandra M Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto, said his new special adviser for political communications, Daniel Sparingga on Saturday.

"The President wants the cases of Bibit-Chandra and Bank Century to be investigated further because he really does not have anything to hide," Daniel said.

Sparingga, who is also a sociologist at state University of Airlangga in Surabaya, East Java, officially became the president's special adviser on Friday. He said the President would outline his position on the two cases known on Monday.

"Later, he will present his plan to build transparent and accountable state management. He will present an action plan on organizational management of the police, the attorney general's office and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)," he said.

Activists continued protests over the weekend in support of the KPK, which has clashed with the National Police and Attorney General's Office in two high-profile criminal cases. Both the Bibit and Chandra case and that of former KPK chief Antasari Azhar have been tainted by allegations of an anti-KPK conspiracy involving police and prosecutors.

A dozen artists came to the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in on Sunday morning to express their concerns on canvas. "Musicians and poets had already done their bit," said organizer Luqman Hakim. "We felt we had to do something to show that we care about indonesia's drive against corruption."

Many of the artworks played on the popular depiction of police and prosecutors as "crocodiles" and graft fighters as plucky little geckoes. That image comes from National Police chief detective Susno Duadji, who told Tempo magazine in July that the KPK taking on the police was like a gecko picking a fight with a crocodile.

One work by amateur artist Heri Hito depicted Anggodo Widjojo, a businessman believed to be at the center of the alleged plot to undermine the KPK, as a sinister monkey riding a crocodile while slipping money into the crocodile's pocket.

Another artist, Agam, depicted the gecko as the victor, squashing a black crocodile with the help of workers and farmers. "This is what I believe will happen," agam said. "The people cannot be lied to. Sooner or later the truth will be exposed and justice will be served."

Indonesian president not linked to Bank Century, minister insists

Jakarta Globe - November 20, 2009

April Aswadi, Febriamy Hutapea & Antara – A cabinet minister on Thursday strongly denied months of rumors in the media that the controversial bailout of PT Bank Century had led to some of the funds making their way into President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's election campaign coffers.

"Do not be suspicious. I tell you, things are 100 percent clear. There is no problem involving Bank Century. Rumors saying that funds had flowed to SBY and his presidential election campaign team are slander. Our campaign funds are all fully accountable," Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar said the president had stated on Thursday.

"Please write that Pak SBY has never received even a cent," the minister added.

Rumors have been circulating in the media for months, including that the real reason for the bailout was to save Century accounts belonging to Boedi Sampoerna and Hartarti Murdaya, both major financial supporters of Yudhoyono's re-election campaign.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Patrialis also denied that the president planned to block a proposal from the House of Representatives (DPR) to exercise its right of inquiry in connection with the case.

"Pak SBY does not want to interfere. [He's not saying] that it isn't Dozens of students and local leaders rallied in Mataram on Thursday to demand a trial of top officers in connection with a shooting incident that left a resident dead and four others injured.the right of the DPR [to investigate the bailout]," Patrialis said.

The House agreed on Thursday to bring a proposal by lawmakers to investigate the government's bailout of Bank Century to a plenary session on Dec. 1.

In a meeting on Wednesday night with ministers from political parties within his ruling coalition, Yudhoyono expressed concern that he and his family had been mentioned as being associated with the Bank Century case. He said he would take legal action if his name continued being connected with the case.

Communications and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring said on Thursday that the president had expressed hope during the Wednesday meeting that the coalition parties in the House would wait for the results of a Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) report before deciding whether to support the proposal now signed by more than 220 lawmakers, mostly opposition members, to launch their own investigation into the Bank Century case.

The bailout of the bank ended up costing taxpayers Rp 6.7 trillion ($703 million), far more than the original Rp 1.3 trillion approved by the House.

Sembiring added that the meeting was the president's way of communicating with his coalition, which is led by Yudhoyono's Democratic Party. "The president reminded [them] that in the contract signed by the [coalition] parties there is an agreement on keeping the lines of communication open," he said.

Sembiring said the president was only one of many people suggesting parties wait for the BPK audit report. "Just to get this thing straight – many people are saying wait for the BPK result, not only the president."

The BPK audit findings are scheduled to be submitted to the House on Monday.

During the House's consultative body meeting on Thursday, three parties – the Democratic Party, United Development Party (PPP) and National Awakening Party (PKB) – opposed the move to put the proposal for an investigation before a plenary session.

While the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and People's Conscience Party (Hanura) backed the proposal, it was also supported by lawmakers from Yudhoyono's coalition partners, including the Golkar Party, Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and National Mandate Party (PAN).

House inquiry into Bank Century scandal: Are they serious?

Jakarta Post - November 19, 2009

Pandaya, Jakarta – The hurly-burly among the 200-plus House of Representatives members seeking an inquiry into the Rp 6.7 trillion (US$700,000) Bank Century bailout is putting their sincerity in defending the public interest in great doubt.

Now lawmakers from major political parties are divided on whether they should wait for the final report of the House-commissioned investigative audit by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to start the inquiry.

The BPK has said it may take until the end of the year to complete the job – some media outlets are reporting it will finish it this week – but some lawmakers eager to start the inquiry hope they can begin as soon as this weekend, although there has been no update from the BPK on a fixed date.

The BPK had submitted its interim report last month. Legislators in favor of the motion say the report indicates irregularities and criminal acts in the bailout that may implicate then Bank Indonesia governor Boediono, now the Vice President, and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

They allege the government may have committed a crime when the fund earmarked to save the bank dramatically shot up from Rp 1.3 trillion, as approved by the House, to Rp 6.7 trillion.

Suspicions abounded that part of the fund may have been siphoned off for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's re-election campaign, an allegation that is given credence by his Democratic Party's defensive stance on the issue.

A stronger sign of the petitioners' questionable commitment became more evident last week when senior legislators made it clear the inquiry would not end in the possible impeachment of Yudhoyono.

"It's only to accommodate the people's demand for government accountability of where the public funds have been spent," said Gayus Lumbuun, a senior legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the opposition spearheading the petition.

Pessimism has also been voiced by Bambang Soesatyo, a Golkar legislator and one of those who initiated the call for an inquiry. "We're ready to confront the tyranny of the majority and we have to be prepared to be disappointed," he said.

Suppose Lumbuun and Soesatyo's frame of mind is shared by other petitioners; it's only reasonable to believe the politicians' true agenda is for stronger bargaining power over the President and his ruling Democratic Party.

An enormous barrier lying ahead is the slew of laws that give the real decision-making power in House politics to the parties rather than to individual legislators.

This explains well why many of the inquiry motion supporters come from parties allied with Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, such as the second-largest party, Golkar, and a host of Islamic-based parties – the United Development Party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN).

It is well known that none of the parties, perceived as among the most corrupt institutions, have demonstrated their commitment to the bitter war on corruption.

Worse, House legislators were the target of public outrage when they recently attempted to curtail the powers of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). And in the ensuing battle pitting the "gecko" (KPK) against the "crocodile" (police and the Attorney General's Office), no parties have lent their support to the antigraft body.

So why are some legislators so enthusiastic about tracing the Rp 6.7 trillion in taxpayer money the government spent bailing out Bank Century? Because of the gargantuan sum of money involved? Or is it because they have had a change of heart?

In the past, countless attempts to question the government on issues of public interest ended with the motion evaporating into thin air, leaving the people guessing what the politicians might have received in return.

In the meantime, the public can only hope the BPK has been doing its job without political pressure and will come out with an independent report. Just sit back and watch the circus in the House over the coming days.

Indonesia's house warned not to drop ball on Century probe

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

Febriamy Hutapea – Dozen of activists warned the House of Representatives on Monday to abandon political bargaining and push through a motion to launch an investigation into the PT Bank Century bailout scandal.

"The House can no longer ignore the people's demand for a thorough investigation into the Century case," said Haris Rusli Muchti, a coordinator for the Petition of 28 Forum, a civil group.

Dozens of activists from several nongovernmental and student organizations met several lawmakers in House to deliver a petition signaling their support for a House investigation into the Rp 6.7 trillion ($723 million) rescue last November.

Some 146 legislators from all but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party have signed a petition calling for the probe. However, none of the political partiess in the Democratic-led coalition, with the exception of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), have announced formal support for the investigation.

The House could decide during a plenary session on Thursday whether to establish a special committee to look into the bailout, which the State Audit Agency (BPK) in a preliminary audit said showed indications of criminal activity. However, given the dominance of the Democrats in the House and the power of the ruling coalition, it appears unlikely any investigation will go forward.

Caught in the cross hairs of any investigation would be Vice President Boediono, the central bank governor during the time of the bailout, and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

The Democratic Party is likely to be targeted in relation to how tycoon Boedi Sampoerna was able to withdraw Rp 2 trillion deposited at the bank when its funds were frozen. Boedi and Hartarti Murdaya, another big depositor, were allegedly major financial supporters of Yudhoyono's re-election campaign.

The activists on Monday urged the House – of which 70 percent are newly elected legislators – to approve the investigation, and, unlike previous such committees, take firm action. "Don't betray the people's aspiration again. This is the time to change," Haris said.

The activists also warned Democratic lawmakers, who refused to sign the proposal to probe Century, not to continue on their course, which the activists said was just turning a deaf ear to the people.

"We remind members of the Democrat faction in the House to heed the people's voice rather than government's because they are not governmental representatives, but the people's representatives," Haris said.

Forum of 28 spokesman Bonny Hargens asked the House to be consistent by not politicizing the motion. "We come with hope but also uncertainty because many things that have been started in this body [now remain in doubt] because of an incomplete commitment," he said.

Bonny said an investigation into the Century case would also help eradicate the "banking mafia" thereby improving the country's financial sector.

Mukhamad Misbakhun, a PKS lawmaker, said that although his party was one of Democrats' coalition partners, the PKS would fully support the motion. "We want to create history in this new House period," he said.

Misbakhun said that the motion to probe the Century case arose from the people's aspiration and he called on the public to guard the movement so that the truth behind the case could be revealed. "The public should monitor closely who supports and opposes the move to probe Century case," he said.

Yudhoyono's accountability is on the line, experts warn

Jakarta Post - November 16, 2009

Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must take action to end the polemics surrounding the Bank Century scandal if he wants to restore domestic and international's trust in his administration, experts say.

"So far we haven't seen any serious steps taken by the President. What's more, he seems to have allowed this controversy to be prolonged and drawn out," economic observer Yanuar Rizky told a discussion Saturday.

Yanuar said Yudhoyono could not expect people to believe there was nothing wrong in the Bank Century bailout – which had used up Rp 6.7 trillion (US$711 million), 10 times from the government's initial bailout package of Rp 632 billion – simply by saying everything was alright.

"Why is it that whenever we talk about the distribution of money related to the bank, the government avoids the issue?" Yanuar asked. "The more the government avoids this, the more suspicious it becomes."

If the government made the whole process transparent and could showed it had no involvement in campaign funding, political funding or any relation to corruption, the public would credit the government and it could regain its credibility based on a transparent and verified information – not just statements.

Yanuar said it was easy for the President to show his seriousness in handling the Bank Century case.

"Yudhoyono only has to gather all chairmen of state institutions, such as those of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) and the Financial Transaction Report Analysis Center (PPATK) and tell them to cooperate to settle this," he said.

The Bank Century controversy first came to the public's attention when legislators at the House of Representatives summoned the government over its lack of transparency, disclosing the cost of the bailout to salvage the bank from bankruptcy on Aug. 27.

Bank Indonesia has repeatedly stated that saving Bank Century was vital because its collapse could have adversely affected the banking system.

Analysts, however, suspect the bailout was granted not because of a desire to protect the banking sector, but as part of a scheme to rescue the investments of high-profile and politically connected depositors.

While the BPK is preparing an audit report on Bank Century, some 130 legislators from several parties at the House have signed a petition requesting the establishment of an inquiry team to probe the Bank Century case.

Article 177 of the Law on the Composition of Legislative Bodies stipulates that an inquiry committee can be formed when at least 25 legislators from at least two different parties officially endorses its establishment.

A legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Gayus Lumbuun, said his party had established a small team to investigate the case and had found several oddities. Gayus said he expected all parties to approve the establishment of an inquiry team.

"The team is not being established to overthrow anyone. We just want to reveal the truth," he said.

Meanwhile, the deputy chairman of the Democratic Party at the House, Sutan Bhatoegana, said his party had yet to see the urgency of the team's establishment and therefore had yet to sign the petition.

Corruption & graft

SBY will have serious fight on his hands against court mafia

Jakarta Globe - November 22, 2009

Amir Tejo & Aidi Yursal – Eradicating the so-called "judicial mafia" is high on the government's to-do list. But anybody who knows the extent of the underground arrangements being made within the justice system – and how intricate the network of people involved is – will be the first to say there's plenty of work to be done.

To carry out illicit negotiations for favorable decisions in court, the network relies on a handful of people – judges, lawyers, private citizens acting as go-betweens and government officials.

But according to the Surabaya Legal Aid Institution (LBH), it all starts when a case is first registered.

"Once you register a case, you are offered two choices – the regular process or what is called 'the fast lane,'?" LBH Surabaya director Syaiful Atis said on Thursday. "Naturally, the fast lane is more expensive."

He said lawyers would then meet with the head of the court to negotiate over which judge would hear the case. "If it's a 'wet case,' like one that involves corruption, the heads of the court usually handle it," Syaiful said.

A verdict could be negotiated through the prosecutor, Syaiful said. At times, however, a judge would directly ask the defendant for money in exchange for a favorable decision.

"When the trial begins, the prosecutor will ask the defendant not to use the court-appointed lawyer, because the verdict can be negotiated," Syaiful said."

Normally, Syaiful added, a judge gives a sign that he or she is open to bargaining with the defendant. "Postponing the verdict, or delaying the announcement of a verdict, those are usually signs that a defendant can contact the judge and start negotiating," he said.

The Judicial Commission (KY) said that to stop the judicial mafia, it was necessary to find out the mafia's connections within the National Police and the Attorney General's Office.

Hermansyah, a veteran staff member at the commission, said that since the KY was established in 2005, it has received more than 6,000 reports complaining about corrupt judges. The commission has deployed several police-trained staff members to investigate judges, "but despite all the reports, only one judge has been forced out of his job," Hermansyah said

Alamsyah Hamdani, a former director of the Legal Aid Foundation in Medan, said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's promise to eradicate the judicial mafia – whose operations are rooted in the New Order era – would be difficult to realize.

He said that as long as defendants were willing to pay millions in exchange for favorable verdicts, there would be judges and lawyers willing to sell justice to the highest bidder.

Alamsyah, a member of the North Sumatra Legislative Council, said injustice continued to prevail in the courts, citing the recent case of an illiterate grandmother from Central Java who was given a suspended sentenced for stealing three pieces of cocoa fruit from a tree that belonged to a huge plantation. Alamsyah called the verdict in the woman's case a "travesty."

Yudhoyono urged to sack Bambang and Hendarman

Jakarta Post - November 21, 2009

Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – Calls for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to sack the National Police chief and the attorney general have intensified, with threats of a "people power" backlash hanging in the air.

New groups adding their weight to the campaign to have police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri and Attorney General Hendarman Supandji fired include the leadership of the House of Regional Representatives (DPD), civil society groups and political analysts.

They stressed the move was needed to force the dropping of bribery and abuse of power charges against suspended Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairmen Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah.

DPD Speaker Irman Gusman asked the President to take "wise action" in responding to the public outcry, while Deputy Speaker Laode Ida was more explicit in urging that Bambang and Hendarman be canned.

Transparency International Indonesia (TII) secretary-general Teten Masduki said Yudhoyono would be fully within his constitutionally granted rights to dismiss the two officials because both were technically his subordinates.

"Yudhoyono's commitment to the war on the corrupt judiciary will be questioned by the public unless Bambang and Hendarman are fired," he said. "Their dismissals will pave the way for law enforcers to drop the prosecution of Bibit and Chandra."

Responding to the recommendations from his fact-finding team into the fiasco, Yudhoyono said Wednesday he refused to be rushed on a decision, adding he would announce his decision on Monday.

In the team's final report, submitted Tuesday, it recommended the cases against Bibit and Chandra be dropped for lack of evidence, and that strict action be taken against officials implicated in the alleged plot to frame the two antigraft commission deputies.

It also recommended wide-reaching reforms in the police force and the Attorney General's Office.

Teten said if Yudhoyono chose to ignore the recommendations, it would ignite public anger toward the police and the AGO, and could even raise questions about the President's possible involvement in the issue.

Rusdi Marpaung, director of human rights NGO Imparsial, said a decision to implement the recommendations would show great leadership on Yudhoyono's part.

"The President must also press charges against those who abused his name in the case," he said. "Failure to do so would only paint him as inconsistent, which could threaten his presidency."

Human rights activist Usman Hamid added Yudhoyono should stop using the excuse of abiding by due legal process to keep from acting on the recommendations.

"Our reputation on the global stage is at stake," he said. "Any failure to follow the recommendations will only humiliate Indonesia as a nation."

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) political analyst Lili Romli said if Yudhoyono went against his fact-finding team's proposals, the crisis exacerbated by the Bank Century bailout and the alleged framing of former KPK chairman Antasari Azhar could end in a people power movement.

Burhanuddin Muchtadi, from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), said the President should have a sense of crisis, which could be counterproductive unless it was implemented properly. "The end of his first 100 days in office could also be his last day in power," he said.

However, Fahri Hamzah, deputy chairman of the House of Representatives' law commission, hailed Yudhoyono's decision to follow due legal process in an effort to maintain international confidence in Indonesia.

House fails to manifest public opinion

Jakarta Post - November 21, 2009

Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – Critics say the House of Representatives is out of step with and failing to follow through on popular public opinion of the alleged incrimination of the antigraft body.

Teten Masduki, spokesman for the Indonesian Civil Forum for Emergency Justice, said following a series of hearings with the police, Attorney General's Office and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the House's law commission failed to clarify whether the abuse of power and extortion charges against Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra Hamzah, the suspended KPK deputies, were based on strong evidence.

"Instead, many commission members parroted their party line while others were de facto spokesmen for the police or the AGO," said Teten, who is also the secretary-general of Transparency International Indonesia (TII).

During the hearings, which ended Thursday night, the 55 members of the commission asked mostly unproductive questions that helped both the police and the AGO avoid speaking about the core issues, and the authoritarian-style commission leadership prevented legislators from probing the evidence used to charge the two KPK deputies, some critics have said.

Gayus Lumbuun, a commission member from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), walked out of the hearings in protest at the way Benny K. Harman from the President's Democratic Party led the meeting.

He told The Jakarta Post on Friday the responsibility for the commission's failure to reach a concrete conclusion fell into the hands of its leadership.

During the final hearing, Gayus had threatened to walk out should the attorney general persist in not revealing key evidence to the forum. Benny, the commission chairman, then told Gayus to walk out if he wanted to and that there was no need to "act sensational".

"The main substance of the hearing was to find out whether Attorney General Hendarman Supandji had solid evidence on the existence of Julianto, the missing link in the KPK debacle.

"I insisted on getting a clear answer from the attorney general and he did not give one. The commission chairman then instructed me to cease my line of questioning, and that's why I decided to walk out of the hearing," Gayus said.

"It is undeniable that managing the line of questioning from 55 legislators is not easy. However, the commission leaders should have given more flexibility to legislators to go after substantial and essential issues, otherwise we risk being out of step with public opinion," he added.

Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a political expert from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), said he regarded Gayus' action as a small ray of light in protecting the public's interest in the hearing.

"I am firmly of the opinion that the hearings were nothing more than a soap opera managed by the House to cover for the police and the AGO while at the same time, tear down the antigraft body," he said.

"However, the public is not stupid. The commission failed to reach its agenda, and instead showed, I'm sorry to say, its own stupidity. Gayus, however, provided the hope that there are still legislators who are sensitive to public interests," he added.

Lili Romli from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) agreed with Burhanuddin and deemed the hearings as both a waste of time and unproductive.

Teten said both the President and the House seemed oblivious to the crisis brought about by the constant undermining of the rule of law by law enforcers, citing the alleged incrimination of leaders of the antigraft body, including dismissed KPK chairman Antasari Azhar, and the Bank Century scandal.

Legislators not in line with public opinion will face the wrath of the public in the 2014 legislative election, he added.

I won't be pressured over Indonesia antigraft case: SBY

Jakarta Globe - November 19, 2009

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Wednesday that he would not bow to public pressure and order the National Police and Attorney General's Office to halt the prosecution of two antigraft officials.

Before huddling with cabinet officials, including National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri and Attorney General Hendarman Supandji, to study his fact-finding team's report – which offered a stern rebuke for law-enforcement agencies in the case – the president indicated that the public shouldn't expect him to act unilaterally.

"The actions taken by the government and president must be based on the Constitution, the law, legal statutes and the system," Yudhoyono told reporters prior to the cabinet meeting, which was attended by his top security, legal and economic officials.

"I cannot let myself as president be pressured, forced to take steps that are not within my authority," he said. "It would mean that I had broken the law. So, the steps must be taken swiftly, we cannot dawdle about this, but the direction must be clear."

Yudhoyono's comments were clearly not what supporters of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) wanted to hear, especially given the contents of a 31-page report presented to him on Tuesday. Yudhoyono had appointed the eight-member team on Nov. 2 to get to the bottom of the KPK investigation scandal.

While stopping short of accusing police and prosecutors of manufacturing criminal charges against Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M Hamzah, the team concluded that the investigation against the suspended deputy chairmen had been "forced" and lacked evidence. The report also urged the president to conduct reforms in the National Police and AGO and punish any officials found to be involved in fabricating charges against the commissioners.

Yudhoyono has instructed Bambang and Hendarman to study the report and inform him by Saturday on how they wished to proceed. Both officials have previously said the report has no legal bearing and will not stop their determination to try Bibit and Chandra.

"Don't rush into statements to reject or accept the entire recommendations. Let us analyze this in a cool-headed fashion and with a positive attitude," Yudhoyono said. "There is no need to be prejudiced about what the team has accomplished."

The KPK scandal broke following the airing of wiretapped telephone conversations among officials from the police, AGO and other figures that indicated a conspiracy to frame the KPK officials for bribery.

The scandal has overshadowed the early part of Yudhoyono's second term, exposing widespread corruption in the country's law- enforcement agencies and threatening to derail the president's antigraft program, analysts say.

"He should listen to the recommendations," said Topo Santoso, a criminal law expert at the University of Indonesia. "The case is weak and there is no sufficient evidence in it. So, there is no reason for the president not to ask the police to drop the case."

SBY has 'moral obligation' to act on anticorruption scandal report

Jakarta Globe - November 19, 2009

Nivell Rayda – Former members of the Team of Eight said on Wednesday that they were confident that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would accept the fact-finding team's recommendation to halt criminal investigations into two leaders of the country's anticorruption body.

The team was set up after the National Police arrested Bibit Samad Riyanto and Chandra M Hamzah, deputy chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), for alleged abuse of power and extortion.

Massive public outrage over the arrests swept the nation and the pair were released early this month but all charges and investigations against them have yet to be dropped.

At the end of the team's term on Tuesday, it submitted a 31-page report recommending the National Police and the Attorney General's Office drop the case, after determining that police had no hard evidence to sustain criminal charges against Bibit and Chandra.

Team member Hikmahanto Juwana said on Wednesday that he was confident Yudhoyono would accept and implement the team's recommendations.

"The president made a very positive response when he read the report. I was sure right then and there that the president shared the same view as the team," he said.

Another indication of Yudhoyono's support for the team's recommendation was the disclosure of the report to the media.

"The president said that the report was not for his eyes only. With the recommendations and findings made public, the president has a moral [obligation] to the public to make sure that his cabinet members follow the recommendations," Hikmahanto added.

Analysts and critics had been skeptical after Yudhoyono announced that he would wait until Monday to decide whether or not to follow the team's recommendations, which included the dismissal and demotion of several high-ranking law enforcement officials.

The team discovered that senior law enforcers may have pressured their subordinates to charge Bibit and Chandra and that a possible conflict of interest had been the root cause of the case. KPK has had a bitter relationship with the Police and the AGO after having successfully prosecuted several senior officials from the two institutions.

"This led to investigators fabricating testimony, to construct a case that didn't exist in the first place," Hikmahanto said, pointing to the recordings played before the Constitutional Court in which businessman Anggodo Widjojo attempted to fabricate testimony so that Bibit and Chandra appeared to have solicited Rp 5.1 billion ($546,000) in bribe money from Anggodo's brother, fugitive Anggoro Widjojo.

Former team spokesman Anies Baswedan refuted views from several analysts that the formation of the team was merely to appease public outrage.

"The skirmish between the KPK and the National Police caught the president's attention and on [Oct. 31] the president summoned several legal experts for our assessment on the battle, because the credibility of the legal system was at stake," he said.

Yudhoyono held a limited cabinet meeting to discuss the team's recommendations on Wednesday.

Pro-police protesters cash in on KPK case

Jakarta Post - November 19, 2009

Niken Prathivi, Jakarta – For Rp 25,000 (US$26) each, hundreds of people staged a rally at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle and area near the Presidential Palace on Wednesday to support the National Police.

The protest occurred after the presidential fact-finding team recommended that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono punish the police officials involved in the antigraft body debacle. The protest caused heavy traffic jams on Jl. Sudirman, Jl. M.H. Thamrin and Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta.

One of the protesters, Jati, 23, a resident of Menteng Dalam, Central Jakarta, said that his friend asked him to join in the protest. Jati said he felt annoyed about the case that he saw frequently broadcast on TV.

Another protester said they received Rp 25,000 for ojek (motorcycle taxi) fee, detik.com reported.

The fact-finding team filed a recommendation to Yudhoyono on Tuesday after weeks of probing a series of corruption cases involving suspended Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputies, Chandra M. Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto. The recommendation included a suggestion to halt the investigation into Bibit and Chandra.

"I know about the fact-finding team from TV," protester Surono said. "Meanwhile, (I acknowledge that) the police and the Attorney General's Office are the law enforcers."

Commenting on the existence of paid protesters, Cicak (Love Indonesia, Love the KPK civil society movement) activist Eryanto Nugroho said this phenomenon showed the police panicked over the movement.

"The crocodile (the police) is panicking" over massive civil society support for the KPK, Eryanto said. "The notion of the 'paid protester' is old. However, I'm concerned about their presence and them not knowing about what they are protesting."

But Eryanto said it was easy to tell who the "real" protestors were. "I'm pretty sure civil society is aware about the (paid protester) phenomenon and can discern who the real demonstrators are."

The terms cicak (gecko) and buaya (crocodile) became popular after National Police detective chief Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji commented on an article published by a national magazine titled "Cicak kok mau lawan buaya?" (How can a gecko fight a crocodile?).

Becak drivers and street vendors join pro-police rally in Yogya

Jakarta Globe - November 19, 2009

Rallies supporting the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) have been a constant fixture of protest schedules for weeks now, following the arrest of deputies Chandra M Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto, however on Thursday people took to the streets to support the National Police and Attorney General's Office.

The protesters in Yogyakarta called on the police and AGO to continue the legal process against the deputies. Among the demonstrators were becak drivers, unofficial parking attendants, street vendors and a handful of university students. They called on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono not to allow any intervention in the investigation of the antigraft officials.

Anti-KPK protesters hit the streets in Jakarta again on Thursday, though in far fewer numbers than at a similar rally held on Wednesday, which attracted around 700 people.

Meanwhile, rallies supporting the anticorruption commission went ahead in Jakarta and outside the capital. In Bandar Lampung, university students gathered signatures on a white cloth to support the KPK in front of Lampung University. The students said that they also wanted law enforcement agencies to investigate the Bank Century case.

SBY should act on 'good' advice from team: Activists

Jakarta Post - November 18, 2009

Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should heed the recommendations of his fact-finding team into the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) debacle, scholars and activists said Tuesday.

Most of them said the team's recommendations truly served the public's sense of justice. Transparency International Indonesia secretary-general Teten Masduki told The Jakarta Post he was pleased with the recommendations.

"I believe the team's recommendations are good enough, and it was also a great decision by the team to publicly announce the final recommendations," he said.

The debacle revolves around an alleged conspiracy between high- ranking officers at the National Police and the Attorney General's Office to undermine the KPK by framing two of its deputy chairmen, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah, for bribery and abuse of power.

A mounting public outcry against the perceived criminalization of Bibit and Chandra forced Yudhoyono to establish the fact-finding team. In its final recommendation, delivered to the President on Tuesday, the team called for the charges against Bibit and Chandra to be dropped.

The team also recommended that both the AGO and the police be reformed, and that all high-ranking officers implicated in the conspiracy be punished.

Setara Institute executive director Hendardi said there was nothing surprising about the team's recommendations. "It's now up to the President to take concrete steps in following up on the recommendations," he said.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto said Yudhoyono had called for more time to evaluate the recommendations before deciding on anything. Djoko added the President would make a final decision Monday.

TII's Teten said the President's cautious approach to the case was understandable. "The President might be trying to avoid accusations of interference in the legal process if he acts too quickly," he said.

"However, I must also warn that it would be very wise for the President to follow up on the team's recommendations in their original spirit."

Syafii Ma'arif, former chairman of the country's second-largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, said that should Yudhoyono opt not to heed the team's recommendations, the public's trust in the President could decline even further.

"The President must also use his conscience in approaching and interpreting the team's recommendations, rather than using the formal legal approach," he said.

Human rights activist Usman Hamid, however, said he found the recommendations wanting. "They're limited to administrative aspects," he pointed out.

"The President wouldn't have needed to establish a fact-finding team if its sole purpose was to recommend administrative actions, such as disciplinary measures." Indra Sahnun Lubis, a lawyer for fugitive Anggoro Widjojo whose graft case sparked the whole scandal, called the recommendations "rubbish".

Smiling 'crocodile' Susno goes back to work

Jakarta Globe - November 18, 2009

Despite a damning report from the presidential team established to investigate Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) scandal, an unrepentant Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji returned to his job on Wednesday as chief detective at the National Police.

"I was suspended only during the investigation. I am back now," a smiling Susno told reporters before a meeting at the House of Representatives.

Among the Team of Eight's recommendations were sanctions for officials found to have fabricated evidence to back charges against Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M Hamzah, suspended officials of the antigraft agency, also known as the KPK.

The team also urged that "related cases" be pursued, including allegations that Susno illegally intervened in the PT Bank Century scandal, which the KPK had been investigating.

Susno has been a focus of public outrage over the fiasco, particularly after he compared the battle between police and the KPK to a fight between a crocodile and a gecko – with the police being the crocodile.

On Nov. 5, Susno informed National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri that he would step aside during the Team of Eight's investigation. After the conclusion of the probe, however, Susno was automatically reinstated as chief detective.

Bambang Widjojanto, a lawyer acting for Chandra and Bibit, told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday night that the development was strange.

"There is a strong indication that Susno was involved in this case, yet he was able to return to work as the National Police's chief detective. This is very weird," he said.

Bambang also warned that Susno returning to the force could give rise to a conflict of interest.

Police interrogate Ary Muladi in KPK bribery case

Jakarta Globe - November 18, 2009

Farouk Arnaz – Businessman Ary Muladi on Tuesday was interrogated by Indonesia's National Police, a day after he was questioned at length by investigators from the Corruption Eradication Commission.

Both the anti-graft commission, known as the KPK, and the police are racing to obtain evidence in the massive corruption scandal that has rocked the nation.

Both the KPK and police consider Ary a key witness in a plot allegedly designed to weaken the commission and pin extortion charges on two of its deputy commissioners.

One of the people allegedly involved in the plot was Anggodo Widjojo, brother of businessman Anggoro Widjojo, who the KPK was investigating for alleged corruption.

"My client was invited by the police to provide them with information only as a witness, most likely against Anggodo Widjojo. So far, police have not declared Anggodo a suspect," Petrus Selestinus, Ary's lawyer, said.

Petrus said police were attempting to collect evidence to declare Anggodo a suspect for obstruction of justice and defamation against the president. He added that other charges being investigated included extortion.

Petrus referred to the 67 separate wiretapped conversations secretly recorded by the KPK, which were played during a recent hearing at the Constitutional Court.

The conversations, which included several between Anggodo and a number of people from the National Police and the Attorney General's Office (AGO), described a conspiracy allegedly hatched to undermine the KPK.

A voice on the tapes also indicated that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had allegedly given his support to Anggoro.

Ary previously told the National Police that he channelled Rp 5.1 billion ($545,700) to several executives at the KPK from long- time friend Anggodo. He later retracted this statement, saying that it was fabricated.

Ary has been declared a suspect for receiving money from Anggodo to allegedly pay off KPK officials and pocketing a fee for his services as a case broker.

On Monday, Sugeng Teguh Santoso, another lawyer representing Ary, requested that the KPK take over the ongoing police investigation of Anggodo for attempted bribery and obstructing a KPK investigation.

Sugeng said Ary has also sought the protection of the KPK because police have allegedly been pressuring Ary into saying he had channeled the funds directly to the KPK deputies.

Jakarta protesters insist they weren't paid

Jakarta Globe - November 18, 2009

The local rent-a-mob tradition continued on Wednesday during a demonstration allegedly in support of the National Police and Attorney General's Office in Central Jakarta.

Around 700 protesters gathered outside the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle at 12:30 p.m. before marching to the Presidential Palace, causing traffic jams.

The rally participants carried posters bearing a variety of statements both slamming the president's fact-finding team and supporting the National Police and the Attorney General's Office in their plans to continue to pursue charges against two deputy chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Chandra M Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto.

One rally participant said he was not paid to join the demonstration but admitted that he was given money "for transportation."

Another participant named Jati said he was asked to join the demonstration by his friend.

"We were not paid [to join the rally]. We were only given Rp 25,000 [$2.67] for transportation. We are just excited because the topic is very hot on TV. We want to join in the excitement," he said, while holding up a poster declaring fact-finding team "Team 8 Are Just Clowns."

However, not all participants at the rally seemed to understand what they were campaigning for. "I just know the Team of Eight often appears on TV," a demonstrator named Surono reportedly told detik.com.

The fact-finding team's recommendations for the president

Jakarta Globe - November 17, 2009

The fact-finding team presented 31 pages of recommendations to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday as part of their investigation into the scandal facing the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) after the arrest of two of its deputies. The team, known as the Team of Eight, suggested that the president conduct institutional reform across law enforcement agencies. The following is a summary of the team's recommendations to the president:

Recommendations to the president:

1. After studying the facts, the weak material or formal evidence of the investigators, and for the sake of the credibility of the legal system, and the upholding of law that is honest and objective, and meeting the sense of justice that is developing in the society, the legal process against Chandra M Hamzah and Bibit S Rianto should better be halted. The Team of 8 recommends that:

Police issue a warrant to halt the investigation (Surat Perintah Penghentian Penyidikan/SP3) if the cases are still in the hands of the police.
The Prosecutors' office issues a letter halting the indictment (Surat Perintah Penghentian Penuntutah/SKPP) if the cases are already in the hands of the prosecutors' office.
If the Prosecutor's office is of the opinion that for the sake of public interest, the cases should be halted, then, based on the principle of opportunity, the Attorney General can cancel the cases.

2. After studying the institutional problematic and the personnel of the law enforcement institutions where fundamental weaknesses have been discovered, the Team of 8 recommends that the president conducts:

To meet a sense of justice, sanctions those officials responsible for the forced legal process and at the same time conduct an institutional reform of the police and prosecutors institutions.
Continue the institutional reforms and a personnel repositioning within he police, the prosecutors' office and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) – of course by respecting the independence of those institutions, especially the KPK.
To reform those law enforcement institutions, the president can order a "governance audit" by an independent institution, which would have a diagnostic nature to identify the fundamental problems and weaknesses within these law enforcement institutions.

3. After studying how law enforcement has been destroyed by the preponderance of case brokers operating in all law enforcement institutions, as a "shock therapy" the president needs to prioritize an operation to eradicate these case brokers in all law enforcement institutions, including in the judicial institutions and the legal advocate profession; starting with a comprehensive investigation of suspicion of the practice of a legal mafia involving Anggodo Widjojo and Ari Muladi by the concerned apparatus.

4. Other related cases, such as the Masaro corruption case, the legal process against Susno Duaji and Lukas in relation to the funds of Budi Sampoerna in Bank Century; and the case of the provision of the SKRT (radio communication system) in the Forestry Ministry, should be completed.

5. After studying all criticism and input that has been made relating to the weakness in strategy and implementation of law enforcement and the weak coordination between law enforcement institutions, the president is suggested to form a state commission which will make comprehensive programs, with clear orientations and phases, to put order into the legal institutions, including the professional organization of lawyers, and also coordinate with the other legal institutions to uphold the principles of a state of law, the due process of law, human rights and justice.

Yudhoyono will study the recommendations on Tuesday night and will summon related officials, including Attorney General Hendarman Supandji and National Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri, on Wednesday morning. Yudhoyono will announce his response to the recommendations on Monday next week.

When asked if Yudhoyono would replace the police chief and attorney general, Adnan Buyung Nasution declined to comment. "Wait until Monday, be patient," he said.

Indonesia's global corruption perception ranking lifts to 111th

Jakarta Globe - November 17, 2009

Nivell Rayda – Indonesia's efforts to eradicate corruption have started to bear fruit, after the country moved to 111th spot in a worldwide study conducted by Transparency International, which was released on Tuesday.

Indonesia scored 2.8 on the grading scale, with 10 being the cleanest, compared to the 2.6 scored last year. The improvement aligned Indonesia with nations such as Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt and Mali in the rankings.

Transparency International Indonesia secretary general Teten Masduki highlighted that the study was conducted before the arrest of three leaders of the Corruption Eradication Commission for various criminal charges, which many see as an attempt to undermine the body.

"It is possible that Indonesia would rank lower than in earlier years if the scandal had occurred before we conducted the survey," he said.

Regarded as a benchmark to gauge the efforts of countries in eradicating graft, the Corruption Perception Index this year was conducted in 180 countries.

New Zealand was ranked as the cleanest country in the world, scoring 9.4 in the study, while Indonesia's neighbor Singapore earned the number three spot with 9.2. Somalia was named the most corrupt country in the world, scoring only 1.1 in the study.

President's fact-finding team should be heard, experts say

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

Nivell Rayda – Although President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's fact-finding team lacks legal authority, the National Police and the Attorney General's Office should follow whatever recommendations it comes up with today, including dropping the case against the two suspended anticorruption commission leaders, activists and experts said on Sunday.

The police and AGO have been reluctant to drop abuse of power and extortion charges against Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M Hamzah, the suspended deputy chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). This was in defiance of the team's findings last week that there was no hard evidence to make a case.

Police and the AGO have both repeatedly said that the team "had no authority to intervene in the ongoing legal process."

The team, nicknamed the Team of Eight, was set up by the president early this month amidst wide public protest against Bibit's and Chandra's arrest. The team was tasked with analyzing the handling of the case and was scheduled to give recommendations to the president today.

Although declining to divulge any details, team members on Sunday said the recommendations would reflect the team's earlier stance that there was insufficient evidence.

Hasril Hertanto, a legal analyst at the University of Indonesia, said there should be no reason for the AGO and the police to ignore the recommendations.

"The president as head of state could instruct members of his administration to follow the recommendation," he said.

"The team's initial findings could be seen as a warning that if the case goes to trial, [police and the AGO] would lose and thus the credibility of both institutions would be jeopardized, especially amidst a widely accepted theory that there is a plot to undermine the KPK."

This month, the nation was mesmerized at a live television broadcast of a session at the Constitutional Court, at which a total of 67 recordings of wiretapped conversations between a businessman and several law enforcers were played.

The recordings point to an attempt to fabricate testimony to support claims that the KPK commissioners had received bribes and resulted in massive public protests directed at the National Police and the suspension of two senior police officers.

Topo Santoso, another legal analyst from the University of Indonesia, said the recordings had put more pressure on Yudhoyono and his cabinet to follow recommendations from the fact-finding team.

"The recordings are so vivid and vulgar, showing that the case is fabricated. Whatever arguments police and the AGO might have in proceeding with the case would not be accepted by the people," Topo said. "Police and the AGO have no choice but to drop the case."

Although the president could opt not to follow the recommendations, University of Indonesia political analyst Rocky Gersung said doing so would be political suicide.

"The team was formed by Yudhoyono, and consists of credible and independent legal experts and practitioners. Establishing such a team already indicates that there is something wrong with the police's handling of the case," Rocky said.

"If Yudhoyono ignored the team's recommendation people might see the formation of the team as nothing more than a strategy to appease a disappointed public," he said. "Yudhoyono has no choice but to instruct his cabinet to follow the recommendations."

President pressured to reveal investigation's recommendations

Jakarta Globe - November 16, 2009

Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Febriamy Hutapea – A number of activists and politicians on Sunday dialed up the pressure on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to publicly disclose the recommendations of the his special investigation team's probe into the alleged attempt by the National Police and Attorney General's Office to discredit the Corruption Eradication Commission.

The Team of Eight established by Yudhoyono is scheduled to formally hand over the results of its investigation into the fiasco today, which has seen two suspended deputy chairmen of the commission, also known as the KPK, charged with abuse of power and extortion. The report is expected to reveal the team's findings on links between the battle between the law enforcement agencies and the Rp 6.7 trillion ($717 million) bailout of PT Bank Century.

Telephone conversations recorded by the KPK and played during a hearing in the Constitutional Court indicate that the charges may have been an attempt by senior law enforcement officials to take down the antigraft body. The National Police's chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji, and Deputy Attorney General Abdul Hakim Ritonga, resigned from their posts following the hearing. Susno had been leading the investigation of Bank Century.

The AGO is also expected to announce today whether it will accept the police case files prepared in relation to Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M Hamzah and begin preparing for a trial. It is facing public sentiment against prosecuting the case but also an initial assessment from the team that there was insufficient proof to charge the pair.

Benny K Harman, the head of House of Representatives Commission III for law and security and a member of Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, has said the team's findings should be revealed publicly.

Usman Hamid, who chairs the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said on Sunday that any attempt to resolve the problems behind closed doors would have serious political consequences for Yudhoyono.

"If President Yudhoyono follows suggestions to close this scandal from the public, then it will significantly decrease the level of citizens' trust in the government, the law enforcers and the House of Representatives," Usman said. "So President Yudhoyono must announce the Team Eight's results."

He added that the president had a "moral and a political obligation to disclose the team's findings and recommendations."

Legislator Budiman Sudjatmiko of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which is outside the ruling coalition, agreed with Usman, saying that Yudhoyono should follow the public's demand for transparency. "If the president opts not to reveal the team's findings he could face a drop in popularity," Budiman said.

Lawmaker Eva Kusuma Sundari, also from PDI-P, said the investigation should be disclosed as the team was formed amid growing public distrust of the police and AGO. Eva said the recommendations should be taken seriously and acted on by the police and AGO.

"If the police and AGO ignore the recommendation of the team, it will be humiliating for the president," and further tarnish the names of both institutions, Eva said.

War on terror

Indonesia at risk of more militant attacks, says antiterror chief

Reuters - November 19, 2009

Indonesia still faces a key risk of new militant attacks as Islamic radicals have set up new cells in recent years and some bomb experts remain at large, the head of the country's antiterrorism unit said on Thursday.

Police have killed or captured a string of suspected militants, including Southeast Asia's most-wanted fugitive, Noordin Mohammad Top, since suicide bombings on two luxury hotels in Jakarta in July shattered a four-year lull in attacks.

But Saud Usman Nasution, head of the country's US trained antiterrorism unit, Detachment 88, said new attacks could occur at any time in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

"Whenever they have a chance, they will launch them," Nasution, who rarely talks to the media, told reporters.

"Many terrorists responsible for bombings in Indonesia are still at large. Many of them are still preparing themselves, it seems, and many new cells have been formed," he said.

Those on the run, he said, included expert bomb makers. He refused to elaborate because he said the information could be sensitive for police operations in the field. Nasution said that since 2000 police had detained 455 militants, of which 352 had been convicted.

More than 200 had been released from jail, while 12 militants were still in police detention facing a legal process, he added.

The killing of some key militants including Top, who claimed to head al Qaeda in Southeast Asia, could also encourage other militants to return to the country, he said.

Such figures, he said, included Umar Patek and Dulmatin, both accused of having a role in the 2002 Bali bombings and believed to be on the run in the Philippines.

Nasution said police were still investigating a possible link between militant groups in Indonesia and al Qaeda after the arrest in August of a Saudi man and the owner of an Indonesian radical website and magazine.

Al Qaeda helped fund the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2003 J.W. Marriott hotel bombings in Jakarta, which killed scores of Indonesians and Westerners, Nasution said.

A string of bombings in Indonesia since 2000 has been blamed on Jemaah Islamiah, a regional militant network, although violent splinter groups such as the one led by Top are now believed to be the key threats for new attacks.

Indonesia want's to clamps down on suspected terrorists

Agence France Presse - November 19, 2009

Jakarta – Indonesia's counter-terror chief called Thursday for greater power to hold suspects, warning that Islamist extremists remained active despite the death of terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top.

Saud Usman Nasution, the head of the Detachment 88 elite counter-terror squad, said the Muslim-majority country should not be lulled into complacency by the police killing of Noordin in September.

He said lawmakers should increase the period police can hold terrorist suspects without charge from a week to a month to allow more time for investigators to gather evidence and round up other cell members.

"We propose at least one month," he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Jakarta. "Because these people are radical, we need to take an approach that will encourage them to talk."

Police currently have seven days before they must either release terror suspects or announce charges against them, but proposals to toughen the regulations are set to go before parliament in the New Year.

Islamist militant Noordin, blamed for a string of suicide blasts across Indonesia since 2003 including the July 17 hotel blasts in Jakarta, was gunned down in a police raid in September in Central Java.

A number of his accomplices, including top recruiter Syaifudin Zuhri bin Jaelani and former Garuda airline technician Mohammed Syahrir, have been killed and others captured in the probe into the hotel attacks, which killed nine people including two bombers.

Nasution said that while Noordin's death was a blow to regional extremists, other groups and networks continued to plot jihad or "holy war" against Western targets, particularly Americans.

Noordin led a splinter faction of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network which he once dubbed "Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago".

"There are many groups, not just Noordin's group, not just Jemaah Islamiyah. There are many new cells," he said, naming the Kompak and Jundullah extremist groups as potential threats.

"Their aim has not been achieved yet to form an Islamic state and an Islamic caliphate in several countries. That's not been achieved... so it's not over yet."

The leader of the US-trained Detachment 88 squad said 352 people had been convicted of terror offences in Indonesia between 2000 and 2009. Of those, 148 are still in prison and an additional 12 are on trial.

Islam/religion

MUI clerics call for ban on end-of-world Hollywood movie

Jakarta Post - November 18, 2009

Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – Several regional branches of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), the country's highest self- proclaimed Islamic authority, say the doomsday-themed Hollywood movie 2012 must be banned because it runs counter to their beliefs.

MUI South Kalimantan chairman Asywadie Syukur said Tuesday the government had to pay serious attention to matters that could mislead or confuse Muslims, particularly a movie like 2012, which is now playing at theaters nationwide.

"On the other hand, Muslims should also be careful not get carried away by anything negative or go against religious values," he said.

Members of the MUI's Situbondo, East Java, branch raided several Internet cafes in the area to confiscate pirated DVDs of the movie and prevent Internet users from downloading it.

"We condemn the 2012 doomsday movie because it has caused a lot of unrest in the Situbondo community," said MUI Situbondo MUI head K.H. Abdullah Faqih Gufron, ignorant of the fact that the raids carried out by his people counted as unrest.

He also called on Information and Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring to issue a ruling banning the movie from spreading through the Internet. He had nothing to say about the DVD piracy.

On Monday, MUI Malang head Mahmud Zubaidi called the movie inappropriate, particularly for Muslims, because "no one but Allah knows when doomsday will come". He added the movie was misleading and called on Muslims not to watch it.

Renowned cleric Yusuf Mansyur, while stressing he respected other clerics' opinions of the movie, said Muslims who chose to watch 2012 should consider it a work of fiction. "Just watch it for fun, don't get carried away," he said, which was exactly what the MUI was doing.

Directed by Roland Emmerich and starring John Cusack, 2012 loosely bases its premise on the widely held belief that the ancient Mayans had predicted the end of the world would occur in the year 2012.

The film received critical acclaim from worldwide moviegoers for its spectacular special effects, which put its production cost at between US$200 million and $260 million.

The MUI's trademark knee-jerk reaction drew widespread ridicule from those who said the council was overreacting to a Hollywood blockbuster that no one in their right mind would take for fact.

"The MUI's call for a ban is pointless and not needed," renowned film director Garin Nugroho told kompas.com in Jakarta on Tuesday. "They should instead issue such bans on issues impacting social welfare and justice, such as on corruption."

Islamic Liberal Network (JIL) program officer Saidiman Ahmad said the excuse spouted by MUI Malang to condemn 2012 was "stupid".

"The Malang branch argued that a scene in the movie shows four people surviving inside a church, while a mosque is completely destroyed," he said.

"That's just very stupid; thousands of people survive in the movie, and none of them are in a church. Nor is there a single scene showing a destroyed mosque. Rather, it's Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome that crumbles in the movie."

Moviegoer Eduard Andre told The Jakarta Post he only agreed with the MUI on the point that the movie was junk plot-wise.

"The movie's just a typical Hollywood type, showing Americans as the heroes," he said. "I only watched it for the special effects, which were awesome. However, other than that, I never felt that the movie was trying to plant in my mind some dogmatic belief or religious sentiments."

This is not the first time the MUI has stuck its foot in its gaping big mouth. The council was previously taken to task by society at large for issuing bans on the social-networking site Facebook and on the practicing of yoga, a move that it aped from the Malaysian council of clerics.

The council had also condemned Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, saying it was pro-Zionist, as though its own anti-Semitic stance was admirable.

Elections/political parties

'Judicial mafia' suspected in KPU fake letter saga

Jakarta Globe - November 19, 2009

Camelia Pasandaran – In the wake of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's calls for a crackdown on the nation's "judicial mafia," new evidence has emerged that allegedly shows staff from the respected Constitutional Court colluded with the General Elections Commission to manipulate the results of legislative elections.

Refly Harun, from the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro), said that it was clear that at least one person with special access to written court decisions had conspired with someone from the elections commission, also known as the KPU, to alter the outcome of the April legislative elections in South Sulawesi.

"It seems people in the Constitutional Court and KPU were involved in forging the letters [used to wrongly award a legislative seat]," he said. "They should not think that with their good reputation, [the Constitutional Court] system does not need to see a cleanup of the judicial mafia."

The case involves a decision by the KPU to wrongly award a seat in the House of Representatives representing South Sulawesi to Dewi Yasin Limpo, a candidate from the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and a sister of South Sulawesi Governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo.

That decision was based on a letter dated Aug. 14 that the KPU said it found on an official's table. The letter, which awarded Dewi the winning number of votes, was purportedly sent from a Constitutional Court fax number.

On Aug. 17, the court sent by courier what appeared to be the same letter to KPU member Andi Nurpati – with the same identification number and similar content – but saying Dewi did not win.

On Aug. 21, Andi, who is also from South Sulawesi, brought the Aug. 14 letter to a KPU meeting to award Dewi a seat in the House. Dewi has previously told the Jakarta Globe that Andi had promised to give her the seat.

The KPU annulled its decision to give Dewi the seat after the court sent a letter in September saying the first letter was a fake.

Andi has said that even though she was in possession of the Aug. 17 letter, she chose to use the Aug. 14 version because it bore the court's official stamp. Asked if she knew the documents were different, she replied that they looked the same.

Constitutional Court Chief Justice Mahfud MD has said that the Aug. 14 letter was a fake and was sent from a fax number no longer used by the court.

However, the Jakarta Globe has obtained a copy of another letter sent to the KPU from the same fax number on the same date – Aug. 14 – as the bogus letter concerning Dewi. The second letter concerned a South Sumatra candidate, Hasan bin Abdullah, and also bore the court's letterhead. However, its contents were true, and identical to the genuine letter the court sent by courier to Andi on Aug. 17 – along with the genuine letter concerning Dewi's race.

This indicates that the person who sent the Aug. 14 faxes – including the bogus Dewi fax – had privileged access to court decisions.

Mahfud, who is respected for his antigraft efforts, would not comment. The court has finished an investigation, but has not made the results public. Refly said it should release the results immediately.

KPU chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said an internal investigation had failed to reveal the source of the fake letters.

Surya Paloh rumored to be ditching Golkar to join Hanura

Jakarta Globe - November 17, 2009

Kinanti Pinta Karana – Key Golkar Party member and media magnate Surya Paloh was rumored on Tuesday to be considering jumping the political fence and joining the Hanura Party, possibly taking his supporters with him.

While Paloh has not yet traded in his yellow Golkar blazer, the rumor that he was courting Hanura was confirmed by his close aide, Ariadi Ahmad, on Tuesday. Ariadi said that while no official decision had been made, Paloh had been holding intensive talks with Hanura.

"Hanura's ideology is not much different to Golkar's. The idea (for Paloh to join Hanura) does exist, especially with the party (Golkar) losing its idealism," Ariadi said.

"Politics is about choice. It is a game. We can keep them or we can ditch them. I cannot say anything for certain now, but there is very good communication between us and Hanura," he said.

Ariadi added that it was possible that Paloh would take his supporters with him if he decided to change parties.

Another Golkar Party figure, Poempida Hidayatullah, said Paloh's plan was logical because at the last party convention all his supporters were shut down in the leadership vote and his expectations had not been met by the new party administration.

"If it is true that he would join another party, it would be a very big loss for Golkar because he has a lot of supporters and potential," Poempida said.

According to Ariadi, Golkar no longer has the fighting spirit desired by voters. Therefore, unless radical reformation was made, the party would be abandoned by its constituents.

"I think Golkar's constituents will leave because the party's political stance is no longer in accordance with what the people want," he said.

Ariadi said that Paloh believed Hanura and Golkar had many things in common, especially after they had worked together during this year's presidential election to support former Golkar leader and former Vice President Jusuf Kalla and his running mate, Wiranto, who is the Hanura chairman.

Paloh was beaten in the party's leadership vote at its conference earlier this year, earning 240 of the 528 congress votes, while his rival Aburizal Bakrie secured 296. Bakrie, the coordinating minister for people's welfare, will lead the party for the next six years.

Civil service & bureaucracy

Sri Mulyani aims for overhaul of Indonesia's bureaucracy

Jakarta Globe - November 21, 2009

Camelia Pasandaran – Claiming to have improved the performance of the Finance Ministry's bureaucracy, the government plans similar reforms in 12 other state institutions next year, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said on Friday.

The agencies targeted include the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas), the Attorney General's Office, the National Police, the Defense Ministry and the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, she said at a briefing on bureaucratic reform at Sahid Jaya Hotel in Central Jakarta.

To gain ground in the crusade against bribery and corruption within state institutions, Sri Mulyani said, the government would focus on nine programs, including increased pay for civil servants, management reform, the eradication of overlapping duties and retooling human resources.

The government, she noted, had already raised civil servant salaries by 21 percent to a total of Rp 161.7 trillion ($17.14 billion) to make officials less susceptible to graft.

"People equate reform to better remuneration. Reform is not only about remuneration," Sri Mulyani said.

"Many employees complain that salaries are insufficient," Sri Mulyani said, adding that though salaries are small, most civil servants receive stipends and perks, such as cars so they can perform their duties and living allowances. But stipends are sometimes not equally distributed, she said.

"The state might pay too much to an employee who does little besides joining flag-raising ceremonies. Salaries should be set based on workload and risks."

She acknowledged that investigations within her ministry had resulted in disciplinary sanctions for 1,961 personnel. They had also revealed a host of methods used to transport bribes.

"Money was being carried in socks, among other methods. At least 150 employees were dishonorably discharged," she said, adding that punishments also included demotion.

The Finance Ministry collects 75 percent of the country's revenue, mainly from income and excise taxes. Sri Mulyani has won renown for her courage in reassigning thousands of employees and for overseeing a complete overhaul of the directorates general within the ministry, namely those overseeing customs and excise, state treasury and taxes.

The finance minister also stressed the need for strict supervision and zero tolerance of violations like bribery that could bring down organizations and destroy the public's trust.

At the same briefing, Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi noted that part of the problem was employees occupying positions they were not qualified for, with many taking top positions simply because of seniority.

"After being given that [top] position, only then does the person go back to school to meet the needed criteria. They should be qualified first before occupying the position," Gamawan said.

The State Ministry for Administrative Reform has set 2011 as the target to conclude the bureaucratic reform programs.

Media/press freedom

Indonesian media protests police questioning

Jakarta Globe - November 21, 2009

Anita Rachman & Camelia Pasandaran – The National Police drew the ire of journalists and media experts on Friday by summoning two newspaper editors for questioning, after the force had already come under fire over its persistence in pursuing a criminal case against two antigraft commissioners while failing to name a businessman a suspect in a related bribery case.

Police briefly questioned the editors of national Indonesian- language dailies Kompas and Seputar Indonesia on Friday afternoon in relation to their publication this month of transcripts of wiretapped conversations between businessman Anggodo Widjojo and a number of law enforcement officials. The summonses were issued on Thursday night.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Nanan Soekarna said the questioning was part of efforts to compile evidence against Anggodo – not intimidate the press. "We need evidence from a number of media so the summonses were not because there were problems with their coverage," Nanan said.

Anggodo is a key figure in an alleged plot involving police officials and prosecutors to fabricate a case against two deputy chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). He has not been named a suspect in any case despite having publicly stated that he had paid Rp 5.1 billion ($540,600) to KPK officials in exchange for dropping an investigation into his brother, Anggoro Widjojo.

Nanan said police needed more evidence to complete the case against Anggodo, and if necessary might even summon officials from the Constitutional Court, which played the taped conversations on Nov. 3.

But Nevy Hetharia, the managing editor of Seputar Indonesia, said police interviewed him as a witness concerning Indra Sahnun Lubis – the lawyer for Anggodo's lawyer, Bonaran Situmeang – and Anggodo's reports to police.

Anggodo filed a complaint with the police against the KPK on Oct. 30 for tapping his phone.

Both Nevy and Budiman Tanuredjo, the managing editor of Kompas, said police basically asked one simple question: had the newspapers on Nov. 4 published the actual transcript of the recorded conversations played at the Constitutional Court hearing?

"He [the police officer] asked if what was published in Kompas was from the Constitutional Court? I replied 'Yes, we published it in Kompas on November 4,'?" Budiman said. "This is not a judicial process, only a regular interview. There were no cornering questions. We were having coffee."

Budiman declined to comment when asked if the police's questions reflected their claim that the editors had been summoned primarily to gather evidence against Anggodo.

Ibnu Hamad, a media and communications expert at the University of Indonesia, said the police's questions did not reflect a search for additional evidence against Anggodo. "These [summonses] neither support nor contradict the evidence," he said. "What sort of riddle are they playing here?"

Earlier on Friday, the Coalition of Journalists Against the Criminalization of the Press rallied outside National Police headquarters to protest the summonses, saying they marked the beginning of press criminalization.

"We are afraid that if we allow this it will be followed by other summons to other media," said rally coordinator Suparni, from El Shinta radio.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) called on police investigators to respect the rights of journalists. It said in a news release that under the Press Law journalists have the right to refuse legal responsibility regarding their journalistic work and cannot be forced to reveal the identity of their sources.

Indonesian censors consider Balibo ban

Australian Associated Press - November 16, 2009

Indonesia's censors have formed a special team to decide whether to allow the politically sensitive Australian movie about the Balibo Five to be shown in the country.

The Indonesian government has declared Robert Connolly's Balibo "offensive" and the Indonesian military has urged the country's censorship board, the LSF, to ban it.

The movie depicts Indonesian soldiers brutally murdering five Australia-based newsmen in the East Timor border town in 1975. The movie, which is in the running for 14 AFI awards, contradicts the official Indonesian explanation they were killed in crossfire.

But the organisers of the Jakarta International Film Festival (JIFF), which kicks off next month, want to show the movie despite the possible controversy it could generate.

The have submitted the movie to the LSF, which has formed a special team to decide whether the thriller is too politically sensitive for Indonesian audiences.

The LSF prevented the JIFF screening several films about East Timor in 2006 because of similar concerns. But organisers are optimistic Balibo will be approved.

The film's release in Australia earlier this year came just weeks before federal police announced they would conduct a formal war crimes investigation into the Balibo killings, a move that sparked some diplomatic tensions.

The probe follows a 2007 coronial inquest that concluded Indonesian deliberately killed the journalists to cover up their invasion of East Timor.

Film & television

TV serves democracy, says watchdog

Jakarta Post - November 21, 2009

Prodita Sabarini, Jakarta – At a small cigarette stall in Palmerah, West Jakarta, Syafei, 35, recently installed a 14-inch TV and has been watching the daily spectacle of national TV news over the past few months.

With fellow street vendors, Syafei watched a live broadcast of police ambushing the suspected terrorist allegedly responsible for the bombing of the Ritz-Carlton and Marriott hotels; a live broadcast from the Constitutional Court during its revelation of a conspiracy to frame deputies of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK); and more recently the Asian Cup soccer matches.

"I bought the TV eight months ago for entertainment, and to keep up to date with news," Syafei said, adding that buying newspapers every day was too expensive for him.

As the most powerful medium for audience penetration, TVs are ubiquitous in Jakarta. And if one does not have a television, walking to the nearest food or cigarette stall can guarantee a glimpse of one. According to AGB Nielsen Media Research, around 2.7 million Jakarta households had televisions in 2008. Each of these households had between one or two televisions sets per family.

AGB Nielsen Media Research communications executive Andini Wijendaru said that in October, the average viewer in Jakarta watched 2 hours and 36 minutes per day.

Coconut seller Rusman who lives in his side-street stall said that if he wanted to watch television he could walk to his friends' stalls. Syafei and Rusman said that lately the news had been very exciting.

"I like to watch TVOne because they have interesting news programs," Syafei said. TVOne is one of the country's 10 private television stations and is focused on news.

Marking World Television Day on Nov. 21, Indonesian Broadcasting Commission chief Sasa Juarsa Sendjaja said Friday that Indonesia's private television stations had served their purpose in terms of providing the public with crucial information on the reformation of the corrupt judiciary.

Television's entertainment programs, however, were still in poor taste and were very commercialized, Sasa added. "In the context of social media, I see that television stations have done quite well in acting as the fourth pillar in a democracy," he said.

Audiences had developed a greater trust in the media, Sasa said. "On the other side, there are still current affairs programs that are not in-line with news broadcasting practices," he said. Sasa gave an example of when television reported on Bali bomber Amrozi too much. "They made Amrozi out to be a hero."

The broadcasting of wiretapped recordings made by KPK revealing an alleged conspiracy to frame its deputy chairmen, was a good example of the media carrying out its function to keep the public informed, Sasa said.

According to AGB Nielsen Media Research, on Nov. 3, when the Constitutional Court reviewed the recordings – broadcast live on five television channels – the number of viewers watching news between 2 a.m. and 3 p.m. rose 279 percent to around 914,000 viewers.

"Audiences watching TV news channels watched for an average of 1 hour and 41 minutes, whereas the day before the average was only 32 minutes," AGB Nielsen marketing services chief Christina Afendy said.

Jakarta/urban life

Jakarta heading for watery grave, experts warn

Jakarta Globe - November 19, 2009

Ulma Haryanto – At least a quarter of Jakarta would be underwater by 2050 if current rates of development projects and groundwater harvesting continued unabated, a climate expert warned on Wednesday.

Armi Susandi, a climatologist from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), said the northern part of Jakarta would most likely be permanently submerged by 2015.

"I am talking about Cilincing, Muara Baru and Tanjung Priok", he told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday. "Meanwhile the Soekarno- Hatta International Airport [located in Tangerang, Banten] will be underwater by 2030."

In a 2009 ITB study on land subsidence and urban development in Jakarta, Indonesian and Japanese researchers showed that an increase in population and urban development activities in the capital was driving the subsidence because of the sharp increase in built-up areas and decrease in natural green spaces.

The problem has been exacerbated by factories, hotels and wealthy residents drilling their own deep-water bores to bypass the city's water grid, sucking out the groundwater and causing further subsidence. Jakarta's limited pipe network for clean water means that about 40 percent of residents have to pump their own groundwater.

The soft ground that makes up most parts of Jakarta, the weight of ever-expanding road infrastructure and buildings and the excessive exploitation of groundwater all play a part in the city's subsidence.

In 2005, Armi, together with ITB oceanographer Safwan Hadi, created a simulation that suggested that by 2050 a quarter of Jakarta would be submerged by the sea.

"Sudirman and Kuningan areas will still be there by 2030," he said, in an apparent reference to media reports on Wednesday that half of the city, including Sudirman in Central Jakarta and Kuningan in South Jakarta, would be inundated by seawater by 2030.

Armi explained that his simulation had used a spatial and periodical projection of the depreciation of the ground level in Jakarta versus the rising sea level. The simulation utilized what he called a "digital evaluation model," which he applied to the Greater Jakarta area to project the impact if nothing was done between 2005 to 2050, using 5-year intervals.

According to his simulation, Merdeka Square and its surrounding areas in Central Jakarta would be under water by 2080. "So Sudirman and Kuningan should also be underwater in about that year," Armi said.

The parameters used for his simulation were an average rise in sea levels of 0.57 centimeters per year, and a ground level subsidence rate of 0.8 centimeters per year. "So the average sinking rate will be 1.37 centimeters a year," he continued.

However, the World Bank in 2008 said that Jakarta was sinking by as much as 4 to 10 centimeters annually. Armi argued that the projection he made was according to actual sea and coastline conditions, and with the use of global positioning to measure the rate of sinking in Jakarta.

Despite his less-catastrophic prediction, Armi still called on the government to solve the problem. "Jakarta has to adapt permanently by building sea walls along the coastlines of North Jakarta. The walls should be built by 2015," he said.

The wave breakers currently being built in North Jakarta, he said, would only help to prevent tidal surges during extreme weather conditions.

"What we need are sea walls," he said, adding that the walls should be at least two to three meters above sea level and six meters thick to be able to protect the city from the ocean, which he predicted could rise by one meter by 2100. Ulma Haryanto

Police/law enforcement

NGOs: President must reform police, AGO

Jakarta Post - November 19, 2009

Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must take action to complete internal reforms of the National Police and at the Attorney General's Office to restore public confidence in these two law enforcement institutions, NGOs said.

A number of activists said in a press conference Wednesday that it was not enough for the President to take to task the National Police chief, the attorney general and other high-ranking law enforcement officials who may have been involved in allegedly incriminating the suspended deputy chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra Hamzah.

Transparency International Indonesia (TII) secretary-general, Teten Masduki, said that apart from imposing sanctions against leaders of the two law enforcement institutions as a warning to others, the President should also pursue further internal reforms in the two institutions.

"We are very disappointed with the President as he has yet to take any measures to follow up his fact-finding team's recommendations. Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji, who resigned, has returned to his post and the police and the AGO are continuing their case against Bibit and Chandra, while businessman Anggodo Widjojo, who has admitted to giving Rp 5.1 billion in bribes through (middleman) Ari Muliadi, remains free," he said.

Danang Widoyoko said the President should place the police under the jurisdiction of the Home Ministry and assign the authority to investigate and prosecute cases to the AGO. He said the AGO did not need a bigger budget, but more supervision of its prosecutors.

Bambang Widodo Umar, a police expert at the Higher Institute of Police Science (PTIK), concurred and said the police should no longer have the authority to conduct investigations, citing the need to separate them from the judiciary and allow them to focus on their main task of maintaining security and public order.

"The Constitution should be amended to place the police under the Home Ministry's jurisdiction in order to speed up reforms in that institution," he said, referring to the 1998 amendment separating the police from the armed forces.

Adie Massardhi of the Rumah Perubahan Democratic Movement said the proposed placing of the police under the Home Ministry would make it difficult for the police to politicize cases.

"The police are in need of a strong leader. They need another Hoegeng Imam Santoso (the National Police chief from 1968 to 1971 who initiated many institutional changes) who can focus on police personnel and their social welfare," he said while also making references to the late Gen. M. Jusuf who was close with the soldiers under his command.

The director of the Indonesian human rights NGO Imparsial, Rusdi Marpaung, said both the police and the AGO had tarnished images, and needed leaders who had the courage to revamp the two institutions.

"The President has to have the political courage to replace the National Police chief and the attorney general. The people deserve more than lip service, and expect concrete actions from the President. The new leaders in the National Police and the AGO have to take action against rotten apples in their ranks to reinstate the public trust in the two institutions," he said.

Danang Widoyoko from Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said that based on a study conducted by ICW, the National Police was the most corrupt institution in the country with many officers abusing their powers.

"Our study found that corruption in the National Police took the form of red tape, negotiation fees and extortion in detention facilities," he said.

Mining & energy

President blames PLN monopoly for power blackouts

Jakarta Post - November 18, 2009

Mustaqim Adamrah, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono blamed Tuesday the state utility firm PT PLN monopoly for the power shortages across the archipelago.

"It is wrong if PLN is not able (to meet the huge power demand)," the President said at the State Palace before a meeting to discuss the national power shortages.

"PLN wants to do everything alone. Give others a chance with the right regulations and policies. I also want that PLN turns into a great company, (with business) involving trillions of rupiah. "(But PLN) has to show good management," he said.

Yudhoyono had a meeting Tuesday with PLN president director Fahmi Mochtar, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Radjasa, State Secretary Sudi Silalahi, State Minister for State Enterprises Mustafa Abubakar, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Darwin Zahedy Saleh and Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo on power issues.

For decades PLN had a secure position as the sole power provider to the national grid. The newly enacted Electricity Law, enabling the private sector or independent power producers to enter the power business, has challenged PLN's position.

PLN has been under fire for the blackouts especially following the Cawang explosion in September.

Hatta said the government's new 10,000 megawatt electricity crash program would address the power shortages, adding that to put an end to the shortages alone it needed Rp 30 trillion (US$3.18 billion). "Of the Rp 30 trillion, Rp 5.6 trillion is allocated to address (power) problems in Jakarta," Hatta told reporters.

Fahmi said that to help find short-term solutions to the blackouts, PLN would install new equipment. "For example, there will be additional transformers in Cawang, Gandul, Kembangan and in Balaraja in Greater Jakarta," he said.

"The funding will come from PLN, export loans and other financing sources. The Finance Minister has approved the export loans."

Fahmi said short-term measures would be finished by 2010 and 2011.

Meanwhile to minimize blackouts in the capital city, PLN has sourced power from the substations in Gandul in Jakarta and from the surrounding areas of Depok and Bekasi. PLN had also bought excess power from Cikarang Listrindo and Bekasi Power, Fahmi said.

"We have fixed several things. The transformer is already in place. We've also repaired a 500-kilovolt GIL (gas insulated line) device in France and now it is already in Cawang," he said.

"The (overall) repair has reached 74 percent and will be completed on Dec. 19. But we'll finish it faster, in the first or second week of December," he said.

According to Sudi, another measure taken was that the President would issue an instruction mandating government offices to minimize power use.

Fauzi also said he would call on big power consumers, like manufacturers, shopping centers and office buildings, to also help minimize blackouts in Jakarta through energy conservation and power saving.

Analysis & opinion

The attempts to boost military territorial function

Jakarta Post - November 21, 2009

Usman Hamid, Jakarta – The newly sworn in Army Chief Lt. Gen. George Toisutta said that the Indonesian Military (TNI) is to set up two new military commands in West Kalimantan and West Papua provinces in an apparent bid to revitalize its much-criticized territorial function.

"Territorial commands are important for the Army to maintain the country's sovereignty and to prevent any infiltration by foreign enemies," he said.

We certainly have not forgotten to appreciate the achievements of TNI's reform. However, having more territorial command shows a paradigmatic problem in formulating policies of state defense. In this respect there are critical notes on the Defense White Paper that can affect the direction of the TNI organizational transformation towards a more professional and modern TNI.

The decision for having new territorial commands should be decided by civilian authority on the basis of strategic defense review. One significant change of TNI reform was the power relations between the TNI, the President and the Defense Ministry. Prior to the reform, the TNI had exclusive autonomy to decide on the deployment of force also on strategic planning, operation, budgeting and personnel management.

Now the TNI is required to submit to the authority of the President in matters of the mobilization of force, while in the matter of defense policy strategies, as well as administrative support, the TNI is under the Defense Ministry.

Defense White Paper 2003 emphasizes the new professional paradigm of the TNI entering the 21st century. However, it still contained the old paradigm that the threats perceived were more domestic, and that sovereignty was still seen from the perspective of homeland security.

The ambiguity of the definitions on the perceived threats were misinterpreted in the operational level, resulting in the consideration of pro-democracy groups, stretching from students, NGOs, to community and political organizations as domestic threats to the country's sovereignty.

For civil society, the reform is meant to eliminate the domination of the land-based Army within the TNI. The security paradigm that is based on territorial security directly preserves the domination of the territorial command.

The defense strategy outlined in the White Paper also has not accommodated the development of the joint forces of the other two branches, and at the same time neglected the reality that Indonesia is an archipelagic country with a expansive shoreline, and large bodies of water that needs to be protected by strengthening the supporting zones based on aerial and marine powers.

Indonesian Defense White Paper 2008 is relatively more extensive compared to the 2003 one; however some issues still need further deepening.

The 2008 White Paper deals with the analysis of the Indonesian environmental safety, the nature and perception of threats, the concept of national defense, the strategic policy of the state defense administration, state defense development plan and the projections of budget requirements.

The old view towards political democratization had resulted in the vagueness of the formulation of the nature of threats to national defense. The 2008 Defense White Paper stated that "the domestic political dynamics that developed since the reform era has led to an increasingly uncertain condition".

This stability problem is viewed to be due to the lack of preparation, the lack of understanding and immaturity of the civilian population in applying the values of democracy. It also stated that "political accessibility gave way to a freedom that is heading towards unlimited freedom" (MoD: 2008: 23).

Viewing the political dynamics as leading to "uncertain conditions" surely is an oversimplification. This is the old paradigm of stability. During Soeharto's 32-year ruling, in the name of stability, the entire political access was eliminated. And also in the name of stability, military groups were permitted to enter the socio-political, socio-economical, socio-religious, and other non-defense realms.

The word "stability" failed to provide human security, creating an atmosphere of fear and has eradicated civil rights. This view of "uncertainty" in the political dynamics has to be evaluated. If the uncertainty said is due to the divisions of power among the legislature, judicial and executive branches, then this is normal democracy. Uncertainty can also be referred to the rise of opposition powers and a critical civil society.

Freedom that is viewed as leading to "unlimited freedom" is also unfounded. Because we have the legal instruments to provide reasonable boundaries to freedom. There are the criminal code and other related laws in regulating public order and safety, public health and morals, as well as the protection of other people.

The 2008 Defense White Paper also regards the regional autonomy and the strengthening of local identities as being "counter- productive to the national principle of Bhineka Tunggal Ika (unity in diversity)." The issue of putra daerah (indigenous people), traditional rights and indigenous land rights (hak ulayat) as the consequence of decentralization is yet to be viewed as normal.

Indonesia has ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which protects local identities and values, including the right to cultivate traditional lands and indigenous lands (tanah ulayat). The strengthening of local identity cannot be viewed as a threat which requires the presence the state instrument of violence such as the TNI.

The strengthening of this local identity must be viewed as a corrective effort to authoritarianism that prevents local identity and entity and at the same time fights for equal access to political and economical resource among citizens. Or at least as an expression of dissatisfaction to correct the centralized system of power. These expressions are legitimate in democracy.

If the view does not change, then this would endanger future processes of decentralization of power and authority between the central and regional government.

President SBY asserts that it is impossible for us to turn back the hands of time, that we are now at the point of no return. Under the Soeharto regime, centralized power brought many problems of injustice, oligarchy and corruption.

Finally, having more territorial command will contribute to the inefficiency of our defense system and posture. The dream of having a trained, well-equipped and well-organized force with good welfare is far from being accomplished.

[The writer is coordinator for the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).]

Crack open the bank scandal

Jakarta Post Editorial - November 19, 2009

Attempts to shed light on the controversial bailout of a private bank got a minor boost Tuesday after legislators asked a plenary session to set up a special inquiry committee.

The massive bailout of Bank Century has baffled the public. How could the government bail out an ailing middle-sized bank to the tune of Rp 6.76 trillion (US$700 million), more than 10 times the initial figure of Rp 632 billion.

The people have been kept in the dark about how their money was spent in the case that first surfaced late last year.

The petition for the inquiry will still be submitted to the House of Representatives' consultative committee before it can be endorsed at another plenary session.

The reading out of the petition almost failed since House Speaker Marzuki Alie, from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party and who was not present at the session, was against it.

The fact that the Democratic Party is the only one in the House opposed to any inquiry into the bank is indicative of the government's stance.

The supersized bailout is closely linked to attempts to undermine the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). A hearing at the Constitutional Court last week revealed an alleged plot by the National Police and the Attorney General's Office to frame KPK leaders.

One reason was that a top police general had been wiretapped by the KPK allegedly asking for a fee to salvage a client's deposit in the ailing bank.

The attack on the antigraft body has been largely seen as retaliation by the two top law enforcement institutions, whose unscrupulous leaders have not been spared by the KPK.

It is ironic if the very success of the KPK in clamping down on corrupt officials should see their wings trimmed, particularly because the KPK was set up in 2004 to make up for the police and the AGO's failure to fight graft.

The new House members face an uphill task if the President's response to the report submitted by the fact-finding report on Tuesday is anything to go by.

The President will only respond to it next week, more than a month after the KPK got embroiled in the legal battle with the police and the AGO. The President had delayed the submission of the report pending a powwow with the National Police chief, the attorney general and the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief – an act that has raised many eyebrows.

The small victory at the House has reignited the people's hopes about the controversial bailout being resolved, particularly because earlier hearings have gone against the people's sense of justice. The House members were overtly sympathetic to the police and the AGO in their recent hearings, although it was becoming clear that the two institutions had been involved in trying to frame the KPK.

The House members who started their five-year term last month have a golden opportunity to prove they are true representatives of the people and to clean up the tainted image of the House. The KPK found at least one-third of the House's previous members were involved in numerous cases of bribery.

Honeymoon over for Yudhoyono

Asia Times - November 19, 2009

Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar (Bali) – The honeymoon ended for Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono less than a month into his second term. Since his inauguration on October 20, there hasn't been much good news for SBY, as Yudhoyono is universally known here, and the downward spiral is accelerating.

A burgeoning scandal over an alleged plot to frame leaders of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) burst open with the broadcast of tape recordings in which the accused are heard bragging to cohorts in the attorney general's office about having connections right up to Istana Merdeka – the presidential palace.

The corruption case has led masses of demonstrators and 40,000 on the Facebook social networking website to call for presidential action against the alleged plotters. The pair are reportedly members of a so-called "judicial mafia", made up of prosecutors, police and judges, that has sold prosecutions and verdicts to the highest bidder. Critics have said Indonesia's legal system is dishonest and a large stumbling block to the country attracting desperately needed foreign investment.

Just the facts

Upon hearing the KPK framing tapes, SBY firmly threatened action against anyone dragging his good name into the scandal, but he has taken no action against any of the other officials named or implicated – many of whom were appointed by him. Instead, he has created a fact-finding team, which reported to him on Tuesday. Yudhoyono met the attorney general and national police chief on Wednesday and is due to announce his response next week.

Despite the commission finding that the prosecutions are baseless, police and prosecutors are continuing to pursue their cases against the KPK leaders.

The idea of a fact-finding commission recalls the case of Munir Said Thalib, the very effective anti-military human-rights activist who was poisoned and died on a flight to Amsterdam in 2004, just before Yudhoyono took office.

The new president promised to get to the bottom of it, appointing a fact-finding commission that discovered obvious links to the military intelligence service, including detailed plans to assassinate Munir through a staged traffic accident (attempted and failed) and poisoning. More than five years later, none of the key alleged plotters have been convicted.

Even the alleged designated fall guy saw his conviction overturned, a clear sign in retrospect that the "judicial mafia" has little to fear from Yudhoyono.

The current KPK scandal dogs Yudhoyono everywhere he turns. At a business forum on the fringes of last weekend's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, he got a softball question about what he has done to improve Indonesia's investment climate. With his international reputation as a corruption fighter, it would have been the time to launch into a riff reviewing those credentials. But the KPK scandal shows Yudhoyono's corruption- busting reputation is now in doubt.

Amid his troubles, Yudhoyono also canceled a planned visit this week to Australia. Indonesia's most important regional bilateral relationship is under strain because; despite talking warmer talk, Kevin Rudd's government hasn't walked a more friendly walk than the John Howard government on the key issue of refugees. Australia's closed door for migrants at sea leaves Indonesia holding the bag on thousands of refugees from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and beyond. It's an issue Yudhoyono needs to resolve more equitably with Rudd, but this week's opportunity has slipped by.

'You missed a stop'

Adding insult to injury, US President Barack Obama's first trip to Asia included visits to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea, but not Indonesia. Obama, who lived in Indonesia as a child and can still make small talk in Bahasa Indonesia, the official national language, would have been greeted as a returning hero.

For whatever reasons, Obama skipped Indonesia – he said on Monday that he will visit in 2010 with his family, who did not accompany him on this Asia trip. George W Bush visited the country twice, once remaining practically within sight of Air Force One, and the second time traveling to Yudhoyono's Bogor residence, necessitating a massive security cordon that included shutting down mobile-phone networks.

Even seemingly welcome pieces of news are tainted for Yudhoyono these days. Transparency International announced this week that Indonesia had risen from number 126 to 111 on its annual global corruption list. However, Transparency International Indonesia secretary general Teten Masduki was compelled to add that the rankings were done before the KPK scandal.

"It is possible that Indonesia would rank lower than in earlier years if the scandal had occurred before we conducted the survey," Masduki said.

There have been other reminders that Indonesia's bad old ways have not yet been relegated to the scrapheap. In Riau province, Greenpeace is leading protests against a government concession to a paper company on what the environmental group claims is vulnerable peat land entitled to legal protection. The police arrested more than 30 protestors and deported a pair of foreign reporters. But, as in the Suharto era, the government is unlikely to investigate the claims behind the protests. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement, "The expulsion of foreign journalists harks back to the country's authoritarian past, not its democratic present."

Road to nowhere

The environmental movement dealt Yudhoyono another blow with the decision announced at the APEC summit that there won't be a final deal on climate change at the much-anticipated Copenhagen meeting next month. Few national leaders were likely to look forward to Copenhagen quite as much as Yudhoyono. He hosted the Bali meeting in December 2007 that set out the road to Copenhagen, and Indonesia would have been in line for tens of millions of dollars in preservation funds for its rainforests, now on hold.

Yudhoyono is also under siege for Indonesia's deepening shortfall in electric generating capacity. During that Bali meeting, if SBY had said he wanted to make Indonesia the world leader in renewable generating capacity, companies would have flocked to install it, starting on the high-profile international resort island of Bali. Instead of being a showplace and a proving ground for renewable technologies, areas of Bali (along with Java) are experiencing regular blackouts of several hours up to twice a week.

Yudhoyono apparently didn't take that bold step of embracing renewable energy because it would have offended entrenched energy interests, and that's not his style. That caution and instinct to avoid rocking the boat has also guided his response to the KPK scandal that has led to so much public outcry.

But those who complain, whether in newspaper editorials or on Facebook, about Yudhoyono's failure to act boldly on the KPK scandal are like people who buy a ticket to a Metallica concert and complain about loud music or go to a strip club and complain about naked flesh. Yudhoyono is displaying the very qualities that got him twice elected and make him the right leader for Indonesia at this moment in history.

Taking the middle ground

His impulses to take the middle path, find compromise, and conciliate are precisely what Indonesia needs to continue its growth into the only truly functioning democracy in Southeast Asia. Since 1998, Indonesia has had four peaceful, legal transitions of power, three of them between leaders from different parties with vastly divergent agendas. Over that same period, it is difficult to name another Southeast Asian nation that accomplished one such transition without a coup or behind- the-scenes military manipulation.

Steps such as creating a broad coalition cabinet, even though Yudhoyono won 60% of the presidential vote, help to create a tradition that politics isn't a winner-take-all event, but a mechanism to govern all of the people in a nation of 17,000 islands that has the world's largest Muslim population, but more Christians than Australia, and where "unity in diversity" is the national motto.

Taking things slowly hasn't produced radical change, but it has avoided reactionary spasms that would threaten the existence of democracy.

Yudhoyono's approach may give some ground on the periphery, but it's likely to ensure that when he steps down in 2014, as post- 1998 constitutional changes require, he'll be replaced by another legally elected leader.

However, his great failure isn't his apparent compulsion to find common ground, but a lack of his own clear positions. Rather than using his powers of conciliation and splitting the difference to move toward a goal, he winds up deploying it reactively, to control damage by others who aggressively promote their own positions. That means the country isn't moving on any particular path, and there's no policy legacy for Yudhoyono's successor. Some may shrug and say that that is hardly surprising, since in Indonesia political campaigning is largely about masking, rather than pronouncing, policy.

Yudhoyono's caution may strengthen the institution of elections, but – dangerously – it doesn't create a grassroots constituency for democracy itself. The Indonesian people elected Yudhoyono, but if he's not creating a more honest and responsive government, they will rightly wonder about the entire premise of voting for a leader. There's no shortage of populist demagogues, from military men to mullahs, ready to use the system Yudhoyono nurtured to exploit growing dissatisfaction with it.

Carefully but clearly, Yudhoyono has to connect the practice of democracy to the practice of government for the people, which sadly hasn't yet been linked in Indonesia.

[Longtime editor of investor rights advocate eRaider.com, Gary LaMoshihas written for Slate and Salon.com, and works a counselor for Writing Camp (www.writingcamp.net). He first visited Indonesia in 1994 and has tracking its progress ever since.]

Why Yudhoyono needs foreign direct investment

Asia Times - November 18, 2009

Fabio Scarpello, Jakarta – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is widely expected to use his strong electoral mandate to push reforms in his second term to attract foreign investment. But the re-elected leader's first 100-day plan is already raising concerns that much-needed liberalization measures may be slow in coming.

Greater foreign direct investment (FDI) will be pivotal to Yudhoyono's stated goals of achieving 7% gross domestic product (GDP) growth and substantially reduced poverty and unemployment rates by the end of his term in 2014. World Bank data shows that over half of the country's 240 million people live on less than US$2 a day and that roughly 40 million people are unemployed or underemployed.

Indonesia will need at least $200 billion in spending each year to accomplish Yudhoyono's vision of faster growth, lower poverty and higher employment, according to government estimates. The government's budget as currently designed will contribute only 15% of that total, meaning that the rest will have to be raised from local and foreign investors.

Last year, Indonesia attracted FDI worth almost $15 billion, representing over 80% of the country's overall 154 trillion rupiah ($17.1 billion) in total investment, according to the government's Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM). That marked a significant rise over the previous year, when foreign inflows amounted to $10 billion.

Some analysts believe the past two years of relatively robust foreign capital flows have marked a positive turning point for the economy, which a decade later still faces lingering effects from the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. At its height, that crisis saw GDP contract by 13%, the local currency plummet to 17,000 rupiah to the US dollar from around 2,000, and ratings agencies downgrade sovereign long-term debt to junk bond status.

Recapitalization of the banking system has deprived budgetary outlays of badly needed investment in infrastructure as well as health and education. The cautious recovery in foreign investment has been widely attributed to Yudhoyono's reform agenda, but doubts about his new government's direction are already emerging.

During his first term, Yudhoyono was credited for restoring political stability to the often volatile archipelago, which some feared would disintegrate after the 1998 downfall of former strongman Suharto. Under Yudhoyono, Indonesia's democratization process has surged ahead, including through decentralization of power to provincial administrations.

Moreover, his economic managers have presided over sound fiscal policies, which have contributed largely to the country's improved economic and financial indicators. Jakarta has been running a budget deficit of around 1% of GDP over the past three to four years, well below the legally mandated limit of 3%.

In 2008, the deficit was a mere 0.1% of GDP, while in 2009, in fiscal response to the global crisis, the deficit was in line with global trends raised to 2.5% of GDP. With clear signs of economic recovery, the deficit is expected to be pared back to around 1.6% in 2010. This all means that total government debt is now down to around 30% of GDP, a massive improvement from over a decade ago when the country was technically insolvent.

Sound macroeconomic management has stabilized the national finances and fostered growth of 6.2% in 2008, despite the global crisis that has driven many regional economies into negative growth territory. GDP growth is expected to hit 4% this year and 5.5% in 2010, according to government estimates. The International Monetary Fund has more conservatively projected Indonesia's growth will hit 4.5% next year.

Stability and growth have contributed to Indonesia's improved FDI prospects, despite the slow pace of actual reforms and lingering concerns about corruption and governance. Yudhoyono's stated commitment to fight corruption had won investor plaudits, though a recent controversy surrounding an alleged official plot involving senior police and the attorney general's office officials to undermine the quasi-independent anti-corruption commission has brought his intentions under new scrutiny.

Indonesia's ranking in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index has improved to 111th out of 180 countries this year from 126th place last year and 143rd out of 179 countries in 2007.

Meanwhile investors often cite the 2003 Labor Law as an impediment to their operations, due in part to difficulties in laying off redundant workers. The lack of labor market flexibility has driven many investors to China, India and Vietnam.

Reform resistance

Yudhoyono has demonstrated a strong grasp of what needs to be done to attract more foreign capital, including substantive legal reforms. But his sometimes over-cautious approach and until now a resistant parliament has mitigated against the passage of relevant reforms during his first five-year term.

For instance, strong opposition from the Megawati Sukarnoputri's PDI-P and Islamic parties contributed to a watering down of provisions in the crucial 2007 Investment Law, including the maintenance of the Negative Investment List of business sectors closed to foreigners. Reform proponents complained after the law's passage that its provisions were too vague and lacked specific benefits for foreign investors.

Similar complaints attended the 2009 Mining Law, which included several nationalistic measures, including mandatory divestments over set periods of time and the legal obligation for foreigners to use national companies as contractors unless a clear need existed for hiring a foreign one. Yudhoyono's attempts to amend the 2003 Labor Law, which includes measures that make it difficult and costly to fire redundant workers, met strong opposition in the form of street protests from labor unions that forced him to backtrack on proposed reforms.

Meanwhile opposition from both the PDI-P and Golkar parties meant that badly needed institutional reforms, including over the civil service and judiciary, perennial areas of complaint among investors, saw little, if any, change. Yudhoyono had promised to achieve fundamental reform of the bureaucracy by 2011, but of five relevant bills up for discussion, only the Public Service Law has been endorsed by the House of Representatives.

Yudhoyono's Democratic Party notched a strong victory at the April legislative elections and with his coalition partners now commands a near 70% majority in parliament. Yet his recently announced 100-day plan was notable for its numerous political concessions to anti-reform elements, both inside and outside his coalition.

Conspicuous in their absence were any major reform plans for the notoriously corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy and judiciary, both strongly resisted by Golkar, as well as the urgent need to make the labor market more investor-friendly, which is opposed by Islamic parties and unions.

The fast-track plan includes 15 priorities, the first elements of a longer list of 45 priority areas to be announced later as part of his five-year plan. The top three priorities of the 100-day plan include taking on a so-called "court mafia", revitalizing the defense industry and bolstering counter-terrorism measures.

In terms of measures that would improve the investment climate, Yudhoyono placed to "develop infrastructure" at number eight on his list and the vaguely worded "financing investment and development" at number 10. No details were provided about how the government would pursue either objective.

Investors are thus expected to take a wait-and-see approach before ramping up new commitments to Indonesia's vast internal markets and huge store of untapped natural resources. Many remain wary of the economy's structural flaws and poor governance that often make doing business here a high-stakes gamble.

Yet the domestic market prospects are promising. According to the United Nations' World Population Prospects 2008, Indonesia's population will by 2050 reach 288 million, with as much as 64% of the population of working age. The country is also quickly urbanizing, with 54% of the population already living in cities and towns, a trend that is expected to accelerate.

Indonesia's per capita GDP stands at around $2,000 – twice as high as India – and is expected to reach $6,200 by 2018, according to Business Monitor International, a private outfit that provides business intelligence, analysis and forecasts. Despite these low levels, private consumption already accounts for 65% of GDP and is the country's main economic growth driver. Indonesia is the world's second-largest producer of tin, the fourth-largest producer of copper, the fifth-largest producer of nickel, the seventh-largest producer of gold and the eighth- largest producer of coal, according to the the country's Investment Coordinating Board. The country also is believed to have a significant amount of underexploited or untapped reserves of oil and gas.

This production potential is greatly undermined by frequent power outages, transportation failures and inadequate water supplies in nearly every Indonesian city and province. Much of the blame lies with the government: according to a 2007 World Bank estimate, Indonesia's investment in infrastructure amounts to only 3% of GDP, while competitors in the region for FDI, such as China and Vietnam, are investing around 10%.

Despite being recognized as Asia's most active business regulation reformers in 2008/2009, Indonesia remains a "difficult" place to do business, according the recently published "Doing Business 2010: Reforming through Difficult Times", the seventh in a series of annual reports published by the International Financial Corporation.

The report ranked Indonesia at 129 out of 181 countries in terms of the overall "ease of doing business" – below the ranking of regional competitors Vietnam, Thailand, China and India. Turning those negative investor perceptions positive will be crucial to the success of Yudhoyono's second term.

[Fabio Scarpello is the Southeast Asia correspondent for Adnkronos International. He may be contacted at fscarpello@gmail.com.]

Book/film reviews

New undercover film of West Papuan rebels

Indymedia - November 21, 2009

New film breaks Indonesian media ban on images of West Papuan rebel camps

Diet Simon – A new film shows rarely-seen footage of separatist rebels in Indonesian-ruled Papua province, who have been fighting a low-level insurgency for more than 40 years.

The military wing of the Free Papua Movement, or OPM, has control over some remote parts of Papua.

The international media and many NGOs are banned from Papua, but that did not stop young British film-maker Dominic Brown from visiting without the knowledge or authority of the Indonesian authorities and capturing rare video images of some OPM military camps.

"Forgotten Bird of Paradise" provides a rare and moving insight into the West Papuan people's long struggle for freedom from an illegal and murderous occupation by Indonesia.

Damian Rafferty, editor and publisher of FLY | GLOBAL MUSIC CULTURE, writes: "Our reaction to West Papua tells us a lot about ourselves. Do we want to live in a world of diverse people living with respect for each other or one in which neighbourhood bullies like Indonesia can kill and degrade secure in the knowledge that handing out mineral licenses to international companies will buy the compliance of the international community?

"What is at stake is the dignity and possibly the very survival of the culturally, ethnically and linguistically distinct West Papuans. On top of that, there is a clash of cultural values which pits the Papuans' symbiotic relationship with some of the most precious habitat in the world against the materialistic values of the occupying power.

"Dominic Brown spent two months filming undercover at significant risk to himself and the people he was filming in order to get the story out. The film does the job extremely well. As ever the devil is getting people to see it but it was shown at the Raindance Festival on 6 October."

Film trailer at http://www.forgottenbirdofparadise.net/Home.html