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Indonesia News Digest No 20 - May 15-23, 2005

News & issues

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 News & issues

Students burn Suharto's picture seven years after his fall

Agence France Presse - May 23, 2005

Dozens of Indonesian students have burned a picture of ex- dictator Suharto in a rally to mark the seventh anniversary of his fall after 32 years of iron-fisted rule.

But the rally by students from the state University of Indonesia was a far cry from the tens of thousands of students who stormed the parliament complex seven years ago to celebrate Suharto's resignation.

Only about 70 students rallied Saturday at a park near Suharto's home in an upscale central Jakarta neighbourhood. They demanded President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono bring him to court for corruption and abuses.

"The current government remains afraid to prosecute him because Suharto still holds power," a University of Indonesia student leader said at the protest.

"We must push this government to create justice," the student said amid continuous shouts of "prosecute Suharto." In another rally in the city of Makassar in eastern South Sulawesi province, about 200 students demanded that Yudhoyono "confiscate Suharto's assets and use them to pay" Indonesia's foreign debt. Suharto, 83, was earlier this month hospitalized for six days with intestinal bleeding.

The ex-general has also suffered two strokes which, according to his doctors, left him brain-damaged -- an argument which has so far prevented him from standing trial for corruption during his rule.

This condition also allowed Suharto to escape trial for abuses committed during his rule after his lawyers offered medical evidence stating he could no longer hold or follow a normal conversation.

Last month, newspapers reported Suharto appeared quite healthy and had walked unaided into a hall at the anniversary celebrations of a theme park founded by his late wife.

Suharto has lived quietly at home since he was forced from power on May 21, 1998 amid economic and political upheaval triggered by an Asian currency crisis.

Indonesia experienced sustained economic growth and a dramatic reduction in poverty during Suharto's reign, but much of the country's vast wealth was skimmed off by a tiny elite linked to Suharto's military-backed regime.

The general began his rise to power amid a mass slaughter of alleged communists which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in 1965-1966. No one has ever been named as ordering the massacres.

Thousands were killed in Aceh province and East Timor during his rule while hundreds more died in various efforts to stamp out political dissent.

Fall of dictator remembered in Indonesia

Associated Press - May 21, 2005

Michael Casey -- Thousands of protesters across Indonesia marked the seventh anniversary of the fall of former dictator Suharto on Saturday by burning his portrait and demanding his prosecution on corruption charges.

During his 32 years in power, Suharto muzzled the media, rigged elections and reportedly stole $600 million from state coffers. He was forced to step down after months of student protests on May 21, 1998.

The largest protest Saturday took place in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, where hundreds of students chanting "Put Suharto On Trial" marched to the local parliament.

"It has been seven years since the reform movement started but there has been no legal action against Suharto," said student leader Jaffar Mahmud. "He must be put on trial because his years of corrupt practices have caused great suffering among the people."

Indonesian media reported that thousands took to the streets in at least seven other cities including in the capital Jakarta. Dozens of students protested in front of the state palace while others gathered near Suharto's home in central Jakarta and burned portraits of the ex-dictator.

But unlike past years when protesters tossed Molotov cocktails and clashed with police, Saturday's demonstrations were largely peaceful and there were no reports of arrests.

The government has repeatedly tried to force the 83-year-old Suharto to face corruption charges, but his lawyers argue that he is too sick to stand trial. A weeklong hospital stay earlier this month for a blood disorder raise concerns that he might be about to die.

But his illness also set off a wave of nostalgia among the country's political elite; President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited him and Vice President Jusuf Kalla suggested the former dictator would never face corruption charges.

Law on 'insulting' rulers attacked

Jakarta Post - May 16, 2005

Jakarta -- Dubbed a country undergoing the transition to democracy, Indonesia still appears unable to make a clean break with the old perceptions that consider the ruler and symbols of the state sacrosanct.

Two students are standing trial on charges of insulting the President and Vice President during two separate rallies against the government. They each face jail terms of up to six years.

Prosecutors demanded on Thursday a 10-month jail term for Bay Harkat Firdaus, a Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) student here, for burning pictures of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Yusuf Kalla during a protest against the fuel price increases last month.

He is charged under article 134 of the Criminal Code on intentionally insulting the head of state and state officials.

Meanwhile, Indonesian National Student Movement (GMNI) member Monang Johannes Tambunan stands accused of publicly insulting the head of state, an offense that carries a maximum of six years in jail, during a rally to mark Susilo's 100th day in office in January. The two students have been detained by prosecutors.

Frans Hendra Winata of the National Law Commission regretted the prosecution of students for expressing their discontent with the government. "A demonstration is one way for members of the public to get their voices heard. They can express their views through protests, anger, etc.," Frans said.

A president, he added, should not necessarily feel disturbed by such protests, "Susilo was directly elected with more than 60 percent of the vote -- there is no doubt about his legitimacy. He does not have to respond to such expressions of discontent. All he needs to do is display a democratic attitude and prove the critics wrong through his successes," Frans said.

He suggested that Susilo emulate the practice in the United States, where citizens are not prosecuted for criticizing their president, and are free to say whatever they like about the chief executive.

Frans pointed out that the prosecution of citizens for insulting the head of state dated back to colonial days, when the government was at pains to prevent people in the colony from insulting the queen.

Despite the fact that Indonesia played a leading role in the campaign for decolonization around the globe following its independence in 1945, the governments of six presidents have since maintained the colonial legacy intact.

Other colonial legal provisions that the government has maintained include the wide-ranging criminal libel law, which is often used to muzzle the press.

Frans said that a demonstration, even if it involved insults against the head of state, was not a crime. "It's a way of exercising freedom of expression and freedom of speech," he said.

Political observer Fachry Ali was more cautious, saying that the courts should be the last resort in dealing with acts or words that were deemed insulting. "What we have to do first is to warn the protesters against committing any acts that may be deemed insulting," he said.

He said that if the offense involved a university student, law enforcers should ensure that he was formally reprimand by his rector. "There must be an element of education involved," he said. He said that it was necessary to promote ethical ways of criticizing others.

"If you want to make the criticism sharper, just put the facts to the fore," Fachry said. He suggested that people focus their criticism on the government's anticorruption drive.

 Aceh

Security operation in Aceh 'adjusted'

Jakarta Post - May 19, 2005

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta -- The government lifted on Wednesday the one-year civil emergency in tsunami-devastated Aceh through a presidential regulation, which also spells out the heavy presence of military troops there.

Regulation No. 38/2005, therefore, provides a legal umbrella for a military offensive to crush the decades-long separatist movement in the natural resource-rich province. "There will be an adjustment to the number of military troops in Aceh in accordance with developments in the field," Cabinet Secretary Sudi Silalahi said The Indonesian Military (TNI) has deployed over 35,000 troops in Aceh since martial law was imposed in the province in May 2003.

Critics have questioned the government's refusal to withdraw the troops despite its decision to lift the civil emergency status.

According to the regulation, which was signed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono earlier in the day, the operation to restore security is part of a five-pronged "coordinated program", which also includes economic recovery. humanitarian relief, law enforcement and empowerment of local administrations. "We need the coordinated program to help reach the set goals," Sudi said.

The program emulates the integrated operation initiated by the previous government of president Megawati Soekarnoputri when it ended martial law and imposed a civil emergency exactly one year ago.

The government started a massive reconstruction program in Aceh and Nias following the Dec. 26 tsunami. Over 129,000 were killed in the disaster.

Chief security minister Widodo Adi Sucipto has said the lifting of the civil emergency was aimed at facilitating the reconstruction of the province. The presence of military, he said, would ensure the reconstruction process worked.

Indonesia is preparing for the fourth round of informal talks with Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist group in Helsinki, scheduled to start on May 26.

Aceh rebels label lifting of emergency a 'cruel joke'

Agence France Presse - May 19, 2005

Jakarta -- Indonesia's lifting of emergency rule in the tsunami- hit Aceh province was a "cruel joke" that came even as the armed forces were stepping up military operations, separatist rebels claim.

Jakarta at midnight Wednesday refrained from extending a year-old state of civil emergency that had given authorities the power to impose curfews and other security measures in the province.

But the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) -- which has fought since 1976 for independence in the resource-rich province in northern Sumatra -- claimed that the Indonesian military had in fact "escalated their war".

"Jakartas declaration of the end of emergency rule for Aceh seems a cruel joke to most Acehnese here in Aceh," GAM military spokesman Sofyan Daud said in a statement.

"Despite the loudly trumpeted end of emergency rule, tens of thousands of troops continue to impose a terrifying peace on our people."

Emergency rule itself had replaced martial law, which was declared in May 2003 at the start of an all-out government offensive against separatist rebels following the collapse of peace talks.

The conflict dragged on as Indonesia shut the restive province to foreigners and the media, and human rights groups accused the military of serious abuses.

Then, after the December 26 earthquake and tsunami devastated Aeh's coastline and killed at least 128,000 people there, the military said it would switch its focus from combat to relief operations.

Representatives of the government and the exiled GAM leadership in Sweden reopened their dialogue in January, raising hopes for peace, even though the military has reported continued clashes since then.

Daud warned in the statement that the GAM remained "a well- organized military force" that is "capable of stronger steps than we have taken so far". The conflict has left 12,000 people dead since 1976.

In the latest clash on Wednesday, two rebels were killed and two soldiers seriously wounded, the Banda Aceh-based Serambi daily said. Rebels had ambushed four soldiers in an armoured military patrol vehicle in Pulo Naleung, Bireuen district, setting off a four-hour gun battle, the paper said, quoting local sources.

Neither military officials nor GAM sources could immediately be reached for comment.

Indonesia must compromise in Aceh talks - rebel adviser

Reuters - May 19, 2005

Dan Eaton, Jakarta -- Indonesia must show separatist rebels in tsunami-hit Aceh province that the central government is ready to compromise if it ever hopes to achieve a peace deal, a rebel adviser said on Thursday.

Damien Kingsbury, an Australian academic advising the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), made the comments ahead of a fourth round of peace talks due to be held between May 26-31 in Helsinki.

Responding to a Reuters interview on Wednesday with senior government negotiator Sofyan Djalil, who rejected a key rebel demand that they be able to take part in elections as a local political party, Kingsbury also accused Jakarta of failing to curb abuses by the Indonesian military.

"The fundamental right to assembly implies the right to form political parties, and this will be absolutely necessary if the people of Aceh are to ever be given their own voice on their own affairs," Kingsbury said in written remarks to Reuters.

He said GAM had shown goodwill by dropping demands for independence. "However, so far the Indonesian government has not reciprocated this goodwill in any practical sense."

The two sides revived talks after a giant earthquake and tsunami smashed Aceh on Dec. 26, killing up to 160,000 people and sparking a massive international relief effort.

Djalil, who is also Indonesia's information minister, said the next round of talks could be vital, with sensitive political and security issues being discussed.

He said if progress was made, only one more round would be needed and a peace deal to end one of Asia's longest running separatist wars could be signed by August.

But he said GAM would not be allowed to contest elections as a local party under any pact to end the fighting that has killed 12,000 people since 1976.

Empty sabre rattling?

At the last round in April, GAM presented proposed changes to electoral laws that currently say political parties must have formal branch representation in more than half of Indonesia's 33 provinces and their headquarters in Jakarta.

Djalil insisted there was enough goodwill on both sides to reach a final peace agreement and said Jakarta was willing to accept a small number of unarmed foreign troops as monitors under any peace agreement.

However, Kingsbury said any monitoring troops would need to be armed. "By definition this will require a large number of experienced civilian administrators, external civilian police, and external military monitors," he said. "Both external police and external military monitors will have to be armed."

Indonesia on Wednesday lifted emergency laws on Aceh that were imposed last year to deal with the rebellion, something Djalil said showed Jakarta's commitment to making peace.

But he said troops would only be withdrawn once a peace deal was reached, and even after that a military presence would be required. GAM wants all government troops out.

Kingsbury said lifting the emergency status without scaling back Indonesia's troop deployment sent the wrong message.

"The ending of the 'state of emergency' without a reduction of troop numbers in Aceh is further proof that nothing has changed and that promises made about 'normalisation' are empty," said Kingsbury.

"I think we all hope that Sofyan Djalil's comments were just empty sabre rattling aimed at destabilising debate before the next round of talks begins."

Aceh rebel leader receives life sentence for treason

Kyodo News - May 18, 2005

Jakarta -- Only a week before representatives of the Indonesian government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) are to meet for peace talks in Helsinki, an Indonesian court on Wednesday sentenced a senior GAM leader to life in prison for treason and illegal possession of weapons.

The sentence against Teungku Muhammad Arif, 76, a civilian leader of GAM in Aceh Pidie Regency, was similar to the term sought by government prosecutors two weeks ago.

Presiding Judge Edian Satria of the Aceh Pidie District Court told Kyodo News a couple hours after the verdict was read out that the defendant had violated the country's 1951 Emergency Law by illegally possessing weapons and committing treason against the legitimate government.

According to Satria, Arif, who was appointed by GAM leader-in- exile Hasan Tiro in 2002, had been involved in a series of kidnappings and killings of civilians in Aceh and in efforts to separate the oil-rich province from Jakarta The ailing Tiro is in exile in Stockholm.

During the court proceedings, the defendant also confessed that in 1954 he led a group of rebels that wanted to establish an independent Islamic state and in 1976, along with Tiro, he declared the Free Aceh state.

Arif, who was a civil servant at the Ministry of Religions Affairs from 1980 to 1981, was arrested by police on Oct. 2 last year in a hiding place in Geulumpang Baro in Aceh Pidie Regency.

The verdict came just a few hours before the state of civil emergency in Aceh, which has been imposed since May 19 last year, ends at midnight Wednesday.

In 2003, then President Megawati Sukarnoputri launched a major military assault to crush GAM, putting the province under martial law -- later downgraded to a state of civil emergency in May 2004 -- and limiting the movement of foreign reporters and aid workers.

But after the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunamis devastated Aceh, the government allowed foreign aid workers, troops and journalists to enter the province and the disaster led the two adversaries to resume peace negotiations.

GAM has been waging a guerrilla war since 1976, seeking independence for Aceh. The rebels accuse the central government of human rights violations in Aceh and of squandering the province's natural resources while leaving the Acehnese in poverty. Thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict.

Acehnese civilians to meet in Sweden

Jakarta Post - May 18, 2005

Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- Ahead of talks that it is hoped will seal an enduring peace in tsunami-devastated Aceh at the end of this month, a group of civilians born in Aceh will meet with leaders of GAM, which has been fighting for an independent state at the northern tip of Sumatra.

The meeting is being arranged by the Sweden-based Olof Palme International Center in Stockholm to help the voices of Acehnese people from around the world be heard.

Damien Kingsbury, a political advisor to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and a lecturer at Australia's Deakin University, said on Tuesday that he hoped the meeting would result in mutual understanding between GAM and Acehnese civilians, and for their common interests to be brought to the negotiating table in Helsinki, where talks are scheduled to begin on May 26.

"It is normal for everybody to discuss ideas. In the case of Aceh, the views of Aceh civil society should be included in any possible peace agreement. Their voice is very important," Kingsbury told The Jakarta Post by phone.

Although refusing to call the meeting secretive, Kingsbury declined to give the time and venue of the meeting.

"This is a very sensitive issue. We are worried about the behavior of the Indonesian Military (TNI) once they know about the meeting. Well, you know there has been a continuation of the torture, rape and arson in Aceh," he said.

He confirmed that representatives of GAM's political wing would attend the meeting.

"Both the secessionist movement and Acehnese civilians should consult with each other and listen to each other as much as possible," he said.

Following the Dec. 26 tsunami, the Indonesian government and GAM have been involved in a series of informal talks in Helsinki.

A coalition of non-governmental organizations grouped under the Aceh Working Group (AWG) praised the proposed Stockholm meeting, saying the separatist movement had left the Indonesian government far behind in designing a workable peace strategy for Aceh.

They also criticized the government's policy of not renewing the state of civil emergency in Aceh without pulling out its troops from the province.

"The military presence in Aceh should be aimed at carrying out non-combat operations, instead of launching offensive operations there. Any offensive policy will only prevent civilians from participating in the peace process," sociologist Otto Syamsuddin Ishak from Syah Kuala University said.

The Olof Palme Center was established in 1992 by the Swedish Social Democratic Party, trade union confederation (LO) and the cooperative union (KF).

It works on several issues, including the promotion of democracy and human rights, and develops projects in, among other places, the developing countries and in Central and Eastern Europe.

New status opportunity to involve society in peace process

Kompas - May 17, 2005

Jakarta -- The reduction of Aceh's status from a state of civil emergency to one of a civil authority must be seized as an opportunity to further increase the involvement of civil society.

Increasing society's involvement should primarily be in relation to the determination of policies, one of which is the involvement of social organisations in the negotiations between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The coordinator of the Human Rights Working Group, Rafendi Djamin, conveyed this on Monday May 16. According to Djamin, the negotiations between the government and GAM that are proceeded rapidly should be balanced with a further increase in the role of social organisations in Aceh and Indonesia.

"The issue of Aceh's future cannot only be appointed to GAM representatives, which by definition are only one element of society. The process should also involve civil society. Listen to [Acehnese] society, women's groups, Islamic religious leaders and so forth", said Rafendi.

As has been reported, on May 18 the government plans to reduce the state of civil emergency in Aceh that has been in place for one year. The government will return Aceh to the status of a civil authority. The reasons being that after evaluating the two six-month periods of civil emergency critical issues have been dealt with. What are needed now are normal regulations that guarantee transparency and accountability in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Aceh.

Rafendi believes that the policy of revoking the civil emergency means the same thing as end to further efforts by particular parties to deny basic social rights in the name of emergency laws. Every single person's civil rights are guaranteed under a civil authority. "The legal framework which is in force in Aceh at the moment is a framework where Acehnese society's civil rights must again be respected. People can no longer be detained in the name of emergency laws, even in the context of the military operation", he said.

Military question

According to Rafendi, in order to support improvements to these civil rights, the military forces present in Aceh must be reduced by half. If the TNI (armed forces) does this it will give a positive signal that the TNI supports the peace process. "Unfortunately, the TNI's commitment to be subordinate to the civilian government is still limited to statements by TNI chief General Endriartono Sutarto", said Rafendi. Lower ranking military officers however, continue to try to justify the TNI's presence in Aceh on the grounds that GAM's forces in the districts are still strong.

Furthermore, Rafendi also criticised the plan by the commander of the Iskandar Muda territorial military command, Major-General Supiadin AS, who said recently they would form strategic hamlets during the reconstruction and rehabilitation stage in Aceh and deploy soldiers in these villages.

"Take into account such measures were applied in East Timor, have a look, what were the results like there? Such measures will only create bloody thirsty militia forces. Do you want to apply an experience like that in Aceh. Won't it instead sow discord in society", he said.

Rafendi suggested that if the TNI wants to win the hearts and minds of the Acehnese then that isn't the way. As a military strategy, taking advantage of the reconstruction process to form militia forces is clearly not the correct thing to do. (DWA)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Aceh reverts to civil authority but troop increased

Tempo Interactive - May 17, 2005

Agus Supriyanto, Jakarta -- Non-government organisations from the Aceh Working Group (AWG) have welcomed the reduction of the state of civil emergency in Aceh to one of a civil authority that will begin on May 18. They support the position taken by the government and are urging other state insinuations such as the TNI (armed forces), the national police and civil society to respect the government's decision. "A state of emergency of any kind is no longer relevant especially in the context of a society which has been through the experience of [the tsunami] disaster and prolonged conflict", said Rafendi Djamin from AWG in a press statement in Jakarta on Tuesday May 17.

The state of martial law and civil emergency in Aceh has clearly had an adverse impact particularly in terms of the restrictions on political space for the social movements and even on the movement of domestic and foreign humanitarian aid has been restricted.

Another AWG activist, Khoirul Anam, said however that with the end to the civil emergency there are a number of important points which must be given attention because it is obvious that there has been no significant change in the social, political and security situation in Aceh.

Anam gave as an example the continued dominance of the military's role in Aceh, where the reduction of a state of emergency to one of civilian authority has not been followed by a reduction in troops but instead troop numbers have been increased by as many as 900 personnel from the East Java 512 Malang Battalion. "It should be that if it has already become a civil authority only organic troops should remain in Aceh and non-organic troops be withdrawn", he said.

In addition to this, the government's decision -- which was supported by the People's Representative Assembly -- give no reasons for changing the province's status to one of a civil authority and the government has also failed to take responsibility for the consequence of bringing a state of civil emergency into force in Aceh. "The government has not taken responsibility for the use of funds for the integrated operation(1), especially in relation to the military operation there", said Anam.

As a follow-up to the decision to repeal the civil emergency, AWG is asking to government to give consideration to a number of issues that will guarantee the smooth running of a civil authority. These include that it does not conflict with Presidential Decree Number 30/2005 and Government Regulation Number 2/2005 which assumes the principles of transparency and accountability, [public] participation and gives precedence to the public's interests. "The government must also be able to restore the civil rights of the Acehnese people and guarantee there will be no restrictions of [their] rights on any grounds whatsoever", he said.

Notes:

1. Integrated operation - the operation to restore government administration, the humanitarian operation, the law enforcement operation, economic recovery and the operation to restore security.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Tsunami's female death toll spawns bachelor villages

South China Morning Post - May 16, 2005

Reuters in Meunasah Mesjid -- Nestled between steep, forested hills and a white sandy beach, Meunasah Mesjid is one of Aceh's new bachelor villages after the December 26 tsunami, which killed a disproportionate number of women and children.

The second-biggest tsunami recorded, triggered by the strongest earthquake in 45 years, killed nine out of 10 people in this picturesque village on Aceh's north coast, a mere 150km from the quake's epicentre. Only 161 of Meunasah Mesjid's 1,110 people survived -- just 45 of them are women.

People now live in tents pitched amid twisted cars, endless piles of rubble and ruined paddy fields, utterly dependent on distributions of food, water and other aid.

"A lot of the men were up in the hills cutting meranti trees for logs. Others were in the paddy fields and some men work in the city," said the village's recovery co-ordinator, Mulia, explaining why more men than women survived. Some men were also out fishing at sea and many of them survived as the wave passed under their boats.

In some villages, the disaster killed up to four times as many women as men, international aid group Oxfam said after a survey of villages. Its findings were similar in India and Sri Lanka.

"In some villages it now appears that up to 80 per cent of those killed were women," Becky Buell, Oxfam's policy director, said in the report released on March 26. "We are already hearing about rapes, harassment and forced early marriages," she said.

A group of women gathered at lunchtime in the community hall now used as the tsunami recovery centre, said such incidents had not happened in Meunasah Mesjid. But single, divorced and widowed women acknowledged they were being pressured to marry.

"I get a lot of pressure to marry and have children, but I haven't found my soulmate yet," said Omrahwati, 32. "There's pressure," said Elliyana, 19. "I want to marry an Acehnese. There's a lot of choices now, so that's good."

The tsunami took an appalling toll on children, many of whom were home on a Sunday morning with their mothers. Mulia said that in Meunasah only eight children between the ages of two and nine survived, along with four teenagers.

Many women and young children, struggling to stay afloat or on their feet, simply tired and drowned when the tsunami struck at speeds of 45km/h.

Men may face problems of their own as they take on unfamiliar household tasks or look after their families. Some could become willing recruits for Acehnese separatist rebels hiding in the hills.

Toughest task in Aceh: Guarding against graft

Straits Times - May 16, 2005

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta -- Getting massive amounts of aid money into the right hands in tsunami-hit Aceh and keeping it out of the wrong pockets is one of the biggest challenges facing the rebuilding team.

'All the donor groups, whether bilateral, multilateral or private sector, want to feel safe about their money,' said reconstruction agency head Kuntoro Mangkusubroto.

In a telephone interview from his office in Banda Aceh, he said he was not worried about getting funds for the massive process, which is expected to take at least four years.

'There will be a lot of money involved in the projects and the donors want transparency -- it is our job to make sure the money is spent wisely and effectively and that there are no leakages,' he said.

One of his agency's many responsibilities is to match donor funds with specific community needs. Indonesia is expecting $3.1 billion in foreign aid for tsunami relief and reconstruction.

Mr Kuntoro said his office was working with auditors Ernst & Young and Pricewaterhouse Coopers to come up with a mechanism that will ensure the contributions will be used for the intended purposes.

He will also impose an 'integrity pact' on all parties involved in the rebuilding projects to prevent corruption.

Indonesian law says that those found guilty of graft in a disaster area could face doubly stiff punishment.

Mr Kuntoro, a former minister of mines and energy, said his main priority is to restore the economy in Aceh by providing jobs. 'You can build houses, clinics and schools, but if there are no jobs then there is no life,' he said.

In urban areas, the focus will be on restoring traditional markets, transportation systems and distribution chains to stimulate commerce. Training centres will offer specialised skills like welding, while fishermen who lost their livelihood will receive boats, he said.

On Friday, Mr Kuntoro witnessed the handover of some 550 hand tractors by the UN Food and Agricultural Agency to 8,700 farmers in Aceh. They will help rehabilitate more than 430ha of the 710ha of paddy fields destroyed by the tsunami.

The outspoken Mr Kuntoro said some of his colleagues in the government had expressed unhappiness over his criticism early this week of the government's 'lack of urgency' in Aceh relief efforts.

'Some ministers showed me papers showing what they had done in Aceh, but I told them I had been on the ground and saw that many people are not getting any help,' he said.

'I'm going to continue to remind them to fulfil their promise -- that's the risk of putting me in this position.'

 West Papua

Papuan separatist's defense lawyers sent dog's head

Sinar Harapan - May 23, 2005

Jayapura -- The court hearing at the Jayapura State Court on Monday May 23 in the case of Filep Karma and Yusack Pakage who are charged with raising of the Morning Star Flag was marred when defense lawyers refused to speak then walked out of the court room.

Prior to the hearing, defense lawyer Paskalis Letsoin and Piter L were sent a dog's head with the writing: "Paskalis/Piter/This is an example of your head". The sender said they were a citizen of NKRI(1). The head was place in front of the door of the Papuan Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) offices on Jalan Gerilyawan in Abepura.

Wearing togas and head bands with the writing "anti- discrimination", the team of five defense lawyers brought the head to the court house on Jalan Raya Abepura. Letsoin and Piter along with three other lawyers are defending a case involving the raising of the Morning Star Flag on December 1, 2004.

According to Paskalis, it was an act of intimidation against advocates in Papua. "The person who put the dog's head [in front of my office] doesn't understand an advocate's work. In defending a case, an advocate never differentiates between political interests and never workers for racial discrimination. It up to them if some people [want to] believe we are doing work which is contrary to the interests of NKRI", he said.

He said that they had reported the incident to the Jayapura municipal police on Monday morning. Separately, police chief commissioner Paulus Waterpauw who was contacted by Sinar Harapan said that they are currently investigating the case and a report is being written. As an anticipatory measure, they will be providing security to the defense lawyers.

When asked about Pieter's statement that it was an act of intimidation and was engineered along with the May 10 incident(2) at the Jayapura State Court Waterpauw declined to answer on the grounds that he had only just taken office.

The court session itself meanwhile was marred when defense lawyers covered their mouths in protest. The incident occurred when the presiding judge Chief Justice Ikhsan reprimanded the defense lawyers for wearing head bands with the writing anti- discrimination. In response they immediately stood and handed out a written defense to the judge, the public prosecutor and the defendant Karma. They then left the hearing uttering the words "thank you Mr Judge".

A similar incident occurred during the hearing of the defendant Pakage. The defendant's lawyer, Paskalis, said that Monday's hearing should hear the defense speech. "It is pointless for us to conduct a defense no mater how good it is if the panel of judges' attitude is pre-judgmental and subjective with regard to the two defendants".

The next hearing will he held on Thursday May 26 to hear the judges' verdict. The public prosecutor has demanded a sentence five years and six months jail for the defendants Karma and Pakage. (ded)

Notes:

1. NKRI - Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia, the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. A term which is often used in the context of nationalism and the desire to maintain the integrity of the Indonesian nation.

2. May 10 incident - On May 10 a crowd that had gathered at the court house to support the defendants clashed with police. Scores of people were seriously injured and a number of high ranking police officers sacked or transferred for the way the handled the situation.

[Slightly abridged translation by James Balowski.]

Students demand police chief's dismissal

Jakarta Post - May 17, 2005

Suherdjoko and Nethy Dharma Somba, Semarang/Jayapura -- Discontent with disciplinary actions taken against police officers involved in the violent handling of protesters in Papua, dozens of Papuan students demanded on Monday the dismissal of the provincial police chief.

During a rally in front of Central Java Police Headquarters, members of the Papuan Student National Front and Papuan Student League for Reform said the police chief in the easternmost province had failed to prevent his personnel from perpetrating violence during the May 10 incident in Abepura, which left at least 11 civilians and 10 police officers injured.

"It has been said that Police have been changed into a civilian (non-military) force whose job is to protect the people. But they turn out to show off their brutal and unprofessional manners," one of the students shouted.

The students unfurled banners, with slogans such as "Bring to justice those who bashed people on May 10", "Don't shut Papuan people's mouths with weapons", "Return our freedom" and "Investigate all human rights abuses in Papua".

They requested a meeting with the Central Java Police chief, but were denied an entry to the police office.

Some of students distributed leaflets containing a list of victims from the incident, totaling 31 people. Three female students burst into tears while condemning the police. "We were not born to be beaten up," one of the students said.

They also questioned the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla for failing to meet their election promise to uphold democracy in Papua. They said democracy would not be possible until the government withdrew the military from the province.

Police clashed with hundreds of supporters of respected independence movement leaders Philep Karma and Yusak Pakage, who are currently on trial, following a court hearing at the Jayapura District Court on May 10. Prosecutors demanded five years imprisonment for each of the defendants on charges of hoisting separatist flags last December.

Jayapura Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Son Ani and chief of the riot unit Adj. Comr. Novly Pitooy were transferred out of the province, while nine field officers faced a disciplinary council following the incident.

The disciplinary council sentenced the field officers on Saturday to 21 days in a police prison after finding them guilty of chasing and beating protesters and firing warning shots without an order from their superior.

Ibrahim Hadi, W. Panjaitan, Arnold, Jackson, Tamsit, Mateus, Nimrod Sroyer, Dena and Arie Afandi, all petty officers, will be transferred out of Papua as soon as they serve their jail terms.

In his defense argument, Ibrahim, the field commander, said he had lost contact with his superior in the Jayapura Police because he lost radio communication at the time of the incident.

 Military ties

Yudhoyono to push US to end ban on military sales

Straits Times - May 23, 2005

Salim Osman, Jakarta -- Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono hopes to persuade United States legislators to end a ban on selling military equipment to Indonesia on his first trip to Washington this week.

The embargo was imposed in 1991 because of the country's 'poor human rights record'.

The Indonesian President will also seek to strengthen political and economic ties with the US.

His two-week trip, which begins tomorrow, will also see him make stops in Japan and Vietnam, in a bid to boost Indonesia's ties with other countries.

In Washington, Dr Yudhoyono will hold talks with President George W. Bush, and have separate meetings with Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Indonesian presidential aide Dino Patti Djalal said a joint statement will be issued after the talks between the presidents.

Dr Yudhoyono, a retired four-star general who received military training in the US, will push for the resumption of full military ties.

Earlier this month, US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said in Jakarta that Indonesia would not enjoy fuller military ties before accounting for violence in East Timor in 1999. That was the year the territory voted to break away from Indonesian rule.

His statement was a blow to Indonesia, which expected a full resumption of military ties following America's decision to resume the International Military Education and Training programme with Indonesia in February.

Mr Zoellick also said that the killers of two American teachers in Papua in 2002 had to be brought to justice.

Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono said over the weekend that some US congressmen will continue pushing Indonesia to ensure justice in relation to both the East Timor and Papua cases. He added that the US government has no problems with the issue.

He said that Congress is 'very influential' in US government decision making, and was 'being influenced by the media and non- governmental organisations'.

The Indonesian President, who will be accompanied by a business delegation, will also meet the CEOs of giant US companies, including Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Newmont and Philip Morris.

Last week, issues that could possibly hamper better economic ties with the US were being cleared before his visit.

Chief among them was the decision to drop a US$130 million (S$217 million) lawsuit against Newmont over Jakarta's allegations that the US company poisoned a bay near a mine in Sulawesi.

Indonesia also indicated on Friday that state-owned oil-and-gas company Pertamina may agree to extend a contract with US oil giant ExxonMobil beyond 2010 to develop the Cepu oil and gas block in Java.

Government officials said a contract extension was necessary to create a conducive investment climate and to boost the country's declining oil output.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian President's trip to Japan on May 31 is expected to come up with a number of action plans.

The plans would be aimed at improving the business climate in Indonesia, and boosting trade and investment activities between the two countries.

He will also seek ways to start negotiations on the planned economic partnership agreement, which also covers the free trade area scheme.

 Human rights/law

NGO's to take Munir's murder case to be taken to the UN

Detik.com - May 23, 2005

Fedhly Averouss Bey, Jakarta -- Whoever it was who took Munir's life has yet to be uncovered and police are still investigating it. In order that the case gets more serious attention, it will be taken to the 75th session of the United Nations Working Group.

The session is planned to be held in Bangkok between May 26 to June 6 and represents a special meeting to deal with people who have been forcibly disappeared (UNWGEID).

The two groups which are take the case to the session is the Association of Families of Missing Persons (Ikohi) and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras). The two organisations will be Indonesia's non-government organisation delegation at the session.

"Although it is not included as a case of forced disappearance, Munir was considered to be a person who dedicated his life to uncovering and ending cases of the forced disappearance of persons", Ikohi chairperson Mugihanto told journalists at a joint press conference at the Kontras' offices on Jalan Borobudur in Central Jakarta on Monday May 23. Also present was the head of Kontra's internal affairs department, Sri Suparyati.

By taking Munir's case before the session, Mugihanto hopes that the brains behind Munir's murder will be more quickly exposed. "We hope that the UN's Working Groups can pressure the Indonesian government to be serious in its efforts to solve the case and make the brains and the perpetrator's of Munir's murder be held responsible", he explained.

As well as the Munir case, Ikohi will also present 15 other cases of people who were disappeared during the May riots and Tanjung Priok. Kontras meanwhile will present 50 cases that occurred in Manggarai and Poso(1).

During the session, Ikohi and Kontras will ask for the draft convention against forced disappearances which was adopted by the UN Human Rights Commission in 1998 to ratified immediately. (asy)

Notes:

1. Following by the fatal shooting of student protesters in Jakarta in May 1998, mass rioting broke out resulting in the death of as many as 1000 people and scores of others who are still unaccounted for. Tanjung Priok refers to 1984 killings of Islamic protesters by the military during a rally in the North of Jakarta. On March 10, 2004, farmers attacked the Manggarai police station in regional capital of Ruteng in Flores, after several of their colleges were arrested and beaten by police following a long running land dispute. Police fired shots to disperse the crowd, killing four and injuring 28. The Poso region of Central Sulawesi has seen years of sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians since 2000, much of which has been provoked by the Indonesian armed forces and the radical Islamist Laskar Jihad group.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Fact Finding Team in Munir case being hindered by BIN

Kompas - May 20, 2005

Jakarta -- The Fact Finding Team (TPF) in the case of the death of rights activist Munir believes that the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) is being uncooperative in solving the case. In conducting their duties, BIN has behaved in such way as to make it difficult for the team that was formed by a presidential decree.

This was revealed when the TPF, led by the chief representative Asmara Nababan, met with the People's Representative Assembly's (DPR) Munir Team at the parliamentary building on Thursday May 19. During the meeting which was chaired by the Munir Team's deputy-chairperson, Slamet Effendy Yusuf, funding problems were also raised as government's budget for the TPF has yet to be given to the team who's duties will end on June 23.

In their relationship with BIN, TPF member Rachland Nashiddik gave the example of the when they wanted to see documents on the transfer of command of BIN's former chief secretary Nurhadi Djazuli. The document should have contained a report on what had been done while he was in office. The fact was that the TPF encountered difficulties seeing the document.

Then when the TPF was able to see a copy, it seemed very brief and was even suspected to have been recently written. Moreover the treatment accorded to TPF members who went to BIN's offices was totally inappropriate. "As a government institution, we were treated inappropriately by BIN", he said without detailing what was inappropriate or excessive.

Nashiddik said that the DPR needs to push for what had already been agreed to by BIN officials and the TPF be actually carried out by their staff. Learning from this case, TPF team member Munarman proposed that the DPR plan the formation of a special commission to restructure intelligence bodies, including the question of taking responsibility for intelligence operations.

No complaints made

BIN chief Syamsir Siregar, who was met following a meeting with the DPR's Special Team for Poso on Thursday afternoon, declined to respond to the TPF's findings that there had been contact between by the prime suspect in the case, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, and a BIN official. Siregar even encouraged the journalists to get hold of this information.

With regard to the complaints from the TPF that BIN is hindering their work, Siregar rejected the idea. Basically, the complaint was not raised either during a meeting with the TPF nor when he met with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "Who's saying it, who? We met the other day, there wasn't any problem", said Siregar.

Threatening phone calls

There has also been a case of intimidation that is suspected to be linked with the case. This time though a phone call to the family of a staff member of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of violence (Kontras) secretariat, Haryati, on Thursday afternoon.

Haryati related how at 10.25am he received a phone call from a man who claimed to be a close friend of I Ketut Murtika, the director of human rights in the special crimes division of the Attorney General's offices. According to Haryati, the man who did not give his name asked for the home telephone numbers of Kontras' coordinator Usman Hamid, Munir's wife Suciwati and Haryati's own home number. "I didn't give [him] Usman and Mbak Suci's telephone numbers. [I] don't know why but instead [I] gave my own home telephone number", said Haryati.

After collecting his thoughts, Haryati immediately phoned his parent's house because he was worried. And the same unidentified man had in fact telephoned Haryati's parents at 10.30am, several minutes after phoning Haryati. The caller said he had already had 200 million rupiah to ruin and blind Haryati's eyes. Angry, Hariyati's parents hung up the phone. (DWA/dik)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Accused Indonesian activist killer a spy?

Melbourne Age - May 20, 2005

Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- A team hunting the killers of Indonesia's leading human rights activist says the country's main intelligence agency was in close contact with the chief suspect.

Human rights campaigner Munir Said Thalib was on a Garuda flight last September to Amsterdam, where he was to study at university, when he became ill and died several hours before arriving in Europe.

An autopsy performed by Dutch authorities revealed the 38-year- old had been poisoned, with arsenic likely to have been added to his meal or drinks.

Asmara Nababan, deputy head of the government-backed team probing the murder, said yesterday the chief suspect, a Garuda pilot named Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, received more than five calls from the headquarters of the national intelligence agency BIN in the month after Mr Munir's death.

Mr Nababan told The Age his team still was not sure who had made the calls, though all had come from a phone in the office of a former army special forces major-general, Muchdi Purwopranjono, from the end of September to early October. "At least five calls were made from that number to Pollycarpus' mobile phone," he said yesterday.

"We reported to the President (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) that Pollycarpus had direct contact with someone from BIN," Mr Nababan said. "It means there is a connection between BIN and Pollycarpus, which BIN had denied."

The investigation into the death of Mr Munir, a vocal critic of army and police brutality, has emerged as a test of President Yudhoyono's independence from the military where he spent most of his career.

But the police investigation has been criticised for being too slow and Mr Munir's wife, Suciwati, says she doubts her husband's killers will ever be found.

Syamsir Siregar, the new head of BIN, who was appointed by President Yudhoyono, has promised to investigate the calls, although BIN has been criticised for failing to co-operate with the investigation.

Police investigators are reported to have interviewed Mr Purwopranjono on Wednesday although a spokesman refused yesterday to disclose what police had learned.

The announcement of BIN's possible link to the murder came after the team reported their findings directly to President Yudhoyono, who established the team as part of his promise to find out who killed Mr Munir.

Although Mr Priyanto was identified as a suspect late last year, it was only two months ago that police finally arrested him.

Mr Priyanto was on the same flight as Mr Munir and gave him his business class seat on the first leg of the flight from Jakarta to Singapore. Why Mr Priyanto, an off-duty pilot, was on the flight, has not been explained. Two flight attendants who prepared and served Mr Munir's meal are also suspects.

Another member of the team, who asked not to be named, confirmed reports in Indonesian media yesterday that it had received information about an army doctor, Colonel Bambang Irawan, who would be questioned about his relationship with Mr Priyanto.

Pollycarpus linked to BIN, says team

Jakarta Post - May 19, 2005

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta -- The fact-finding team tasked to assist the investigation into the death by poisoning of Munir Thalib Said revealed incriminating evidence of the involvement of the State Intelligence Body (BIN) in the case, saying the main suspect in the murder kept in touch with a top BIN official after the rights activist died.

Asmara Nababan, the team's deputy head, said after a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Wednesday that Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Prihanto called the BIN official via his cellular phone several times after Munir's death last September.

"We reported to the President that Polly had direct contact with someone in BIN. It means there is a connection [between BIN and Polly], which BIN had previously denied. But, we must be cautious as we don't want to implicate BIN as an institution," he said.

Asmara, a former secretary-general of the National Commission on Human Rights, declined to identify the BIN official, citing the presumption of innocence.

Sources close to the team said that Polly made the phone calls to the room of BIN deputy five from September to October. The team has obtained a document from a cellular phone provider confirming that the calls were directed to the room of the official.

Deputy five at that time was Maj. Gen. Muchdi Pr., a former commander of the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus). The police investigators and the fact-finding team were unable to quiz Muchdi on Tuesday as he did not show up for questioning.

So far, the investigators and the team have questioned Nurhadi Djazuli, the BIN secretary-general when the case took place. The fact-finding team has not questioned Hendropriyono, who was the BIN head at that time.

Rights activist Munir was found dead aboard a Garuda flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam on Sept. 7 last year. An autopsy found an excessive amount of arsenic in his body.

Police have named Garuda pilot/aviation security officer Pollycarpus and two flight attendants who were on duty when Munir died as suspects.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono heard on Wednesday the report from the team, which was represented by Asmara and its head Brig. Gen. Marsudhi Hanafi.

Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Widodo Adi Sucipto, BIN chief Syamsir Siregar, National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar and Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh were also present.

While reporters were briefed by State Secretary Sudi Silalahi, Syamsir fell over as he attempted to sneak away.

Syamsir said he would investigate the possible involvement of BIN in the murder of Munir. "That's what they said, I will investigate it," Syamsir said, responding to questions on whether Polly belonged to BIN.

The meeting was aimed at "improving coordinating between the team and the parties involved" in a bid to help boost the investigation into the case, Sudi said. "The President has given clear directives. There will be no more problems in the future hampering the investigation," he said.

Marsudhi said the President had ordered BIN and the police to follow up the results of the team's findings. "There will be a periodical meeting to iron out problems facing the investigation," he said.

Asmara hailed the meeting, saying it reflected a common commitment on the part of all parties to reveal those responsible for the murder of Munir.

The May riots: Remembering the terror

Jakarta Post - May 16, 2005

Tiarma Siboro and Hera Diani, Jakarta -- A group of human rights activists and victims have published a book aimed at remembering the victims and recalling the terror that stalked Jakarta during the 1998 May riots, one of the most traumatic of the long list of events that have colored Indonesia's history since independence.

The group hopes that the book will rekindle the interest of the country's law enforcement agencies in the events given that so little headway has been made in investigating what happened, even after almost seven years.

"In the past four months, we have met with hundreds of witnesses, who described the real situation on the ground during the three days of unprecedented riots in the greater Jakarta area in May 1998.

"Based on their testimony, we have come to the conclusion that the riots were well-organized," said an activist from the Indonesian Association for the Advocacy and Defense of Human Rights (APHI), Raymond Simanjorang.

The May riots, which led to the fall of former authoritarian president Soeharto, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 people and some 60 women, mostly ethnic Chinese, were gang raped or subjected to other forms of sexual violence, according to a report from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). Many buildings in various commercial centers in the capital and surrounding areas were set on fire and looted. But no one has been brought to book so far in connection with the pogrom.

In the book, titled Reka Ulang Kerusuhan Mei 1998 (A Reconstruction of the 1998 May Riots), the group identifies the various places that were targeted by mobs during the disturbances in Central, South, West, East and North Jakarta, and some parts of Tangerang, Bekasi and Depok.

The book, which was launched in conjunction with the anniversary of the riots, also describes how the mob violence "was instigated by groups of unidentified men." Hundreds of witnesses also testified that "the groups of unidentified men were transported in trucks. They carried jerricans filled with gasoline and instigated the mobs to loot stores, locking in the owners and burning them alive." The book also highlights the almost total absence of the security forces on the ground when the disturbances were taking place.

Documenting what happened during the riots and putting it down on paper proved to be difficult, said Raymond, who explained that many victims, especially those of ethnic Chinese descent, were reluctant to talk about what had happened to them.

Raymond said that one chapter in the book was dedicated to the terror experienced by the ethnic Chinese residents of the Mitra Bahari apartments in Pluit, North Jakarta.

"Why can this country not find one single person who can be held to account for the violence?," Raymond asked.

The book is the second of a planned trilogy. The first book, titled Sebuah dokumentasi sejarah: menatap wajah korban (Historical Documentation: Seeing the Victims' Faces) was launched earlier last month.

The group is now in the process of finalizing the third book, titled Kerusuhan May 1998: Kejahatan terhadap kemanusiaan (The May 1998 Riots: A Crime against Humanity).

Lawyer and rights activist Albert Hasibuan urged the government to fully investigate the riots to prevent any repetition in the future.

"We must ascertain who was responsible for the anarchy. No matter what verdict the ad hoc tribunal may hand down, someone must be tried for these crimes," stressed Albert, a former member of Komnas HAM who was involved in preparing an earlier report for then president B.J. Habibie.

"The May riots resulted in massive destruction. They caused material damage, physical damage and also moral damage. Dozens of people of ethnic Chinese descent were forced to flee the country following the anarchy," he said.

Albert added that vested political interests were the biggest challenge facing a civilian administration in attempting to uncover the truth behind the riots.

 Reconciliation & justice

Justice eludes Trisakti victims

Jakarta Post - May 23, 2005

Jakarta -- "History speaks for itself." This was the response a mother of a victim killed during the 1998 Trisakti shooting in West Jakarta gave when asked about the zero law enforcement against the killers.

Hira Tetty, the 54-year-old mother of Elang Mulya, said she and three other victims' families did not feel that justice had been done, despite it being seven years since the reform movement began and the downfall of former strongman Soeharto.

Elang was shot dead allegedly by security personnel on May 12, 1998. Three other Trisakti University students were killed, namely Hafidhin Royan, Hendriawan Lesmana and Herry Hartanto.

"As a parent, I am tired of seeking justice on earth for my son, but I believe it will happen in the hereafter," Tetty told The Jakarta Post on Sunday, speaking on behalf of herself and the parents of the three other victims.

Elang, born on July 15, 1978, was the second of her three children and studied architecture at Trisakti University.

Tetty and the parents of Hafidhin, Hendriawan and Herry have struggled to have the truth revealed, but to no avail.

As if Elang's death was not enough reason to mourn, Tetty also lost her beloved husband five years later. Bagus Yoga Nandita passed away in 2003 after suffering constant depression over the loss of his son.

Now, Tetty has to fight alone for justice without her husband. "My husband used to actively attend meetings with the other victims' families and people concerned with us, such as lawyers, lecturers, students and non-governmental organizations, to fight together.

"Although in the end they became no different from a ping-pong ball as they met with different House of Representatives members," she said.

The House sparked condemnation from human rights activists upon declaring that the Trisakti tragedy was not a case of gross human rights abuse. Earlier, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) reported it had found systematic gross human rights violations committed during the tragedy followed by deadly riots in Jakarta.

Tetty said that even though people had sacrificed their lives for the reform movement, the situation in the country had not significantly improved. Many others have voiced the same opinion.

"Nothing has improved. Graft is still rampant, riots still take place and the Trisakti tragedy has never been resolved," said Tetty, a housemother who lives off her late husband's pension from Bank Indonesia.

The families of the Trisakti tragedy victims no longer expect the killers to be brought to trial. "The case has been going on for seven years like a ping-pong game. But (the victims) should at least get recognition as heroes of the reform movement," Tetty said.

The Trisakti tragedy was followed by mass riots, which ravaged Jakarta and several other cities from May 13 through May 15, 1998. This preceded the end of 32 years of authoritarian rule of Soeharto, who quit on May 21 that year. However, nobody has been held accountable for the tragedy.

The 16-member independent team set up by Komnas HAM in March 2003 failed to question most of the military officers active at the time as they refused to comply with summonses issued by Komnas HAM.

They included then Jakarta Military Commander Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin (now the Ministry of Defense secretary-general) and Sjafrie's former assistant Maj. Gen. Tritamtomo (now the Bukit Barisan military commander).

Activists recently urged the House to propose the establishment of an ad hoc human rights tribunal so that all suspects could be summoned. The call came as the Attorney General's Office seemed reluctant to follow up on the findings by the independent team.

Protesters demand former dictator face trial

Associated Press - May 22, 2005

Michael Casey, Jakarta -- Thousands of protesters across Indonesia marked the seventh anniversary of the fall of former dictator Suharto yesterday by burning his portrait and demanding his prosecution on corruption charges. During his 32 years in power, Suharto muzzled the media, rigged elections and reportedly stole $600 million from state coffers. He was forced to step down after months of student protests on May 21, 1998.

The largest protest yesterday took place in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, where hundreds of students chanting "Put Suharto on trial" marched to the local parliament.

"It has been seven years since the reform movement started, but there has been no legal action against Suharto," said student leader Jaffar Mahmud. "He must be put on trial because his years of corrupt practices have caused great suffering among the people." Indonesian media reported that thousands took to the streets in at least seven other cities, including in the capital Jakarta. Dozens of students protested in front of the state palace while others gathered near Suharto's home in central Jakarta and burned portraits of the ex-dictator.

But unlike past years when protesters tossed Molotov cocktails and clashed with police, yesterday's demonstrations were largely peaceful and there were no reports of arrests.

The government has repeatedly tried to force Suharto, 83, to face corruption charges, but his lawyers argue that he is too sick to stand trial. A weeklong hospital stay this month for a blood disorder raised concerns that he might be about to die.

But his illness also set off a wave of nostalgia among the country's political elite; President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited him, and Vice President Jusuf Kalla suggested Suharto would never face corruption charges.

 Labour issues

Government reports fewer labor strikes

Jakarta Post - May 17, 2005

Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta -- Fewer labor strikes were recorded during the first quarter of this year, indicating that businesspeople and workers might be beginning to better understand their obligations under labor regulations, a report said.

The report, received by The Jakarta Post from the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, said there were 23 strikes involving some 11,887 workers in the first quarter of the year, down from 33 strikes involving 14,751 workers in the corresponding period last year.

Working hours lost as a result of strikes fell from about 149 hours in the first quarter of last year to 118 hours in the same period this year.

"Businesspeople and workers are becoming more aware of their obligations. That is why the number of strikes declined," said Musni Tambusai, the director general of industrial relations at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration. Musni said most of the strikes were provoked by non-governmental organizations trying to disturb the operations of a company for political and financial reasons.

According to the report, most of the strikes were fueled by "non-normative" reasons that did not concern the basic needs of workers. Non-normative reasons here include demands by workers for bonuses and meal and transportation allowances, as well as issues related to bankruptcy, layoffs and work disputes.

The report said only a small number of strikes were driven by "normative" demands related to the basic needs of workers, such as days off, insurance, overtime pay and religious allowances.

The report also underscored the government's concern over non- governmental organizations provoking strikes to further their political or financial interests.

The business community has pointed to worker strikes as one of its major concerns, claiming that strikes have scared off some foreign investors.

Strikes often force companies to halt production, resulting in financial losses and in some cases leaving the companies unable to meet contracts with overseas buyers.

According to the business community, this problem is exacerbated by the relative lack of productivity of local workers, who are often uneducated and unskilled.

Singapore a 'killing field' migrant workers: Study

Jakarta Post - May 16, 2005

Jakarta -- While many Indonesian businessmen wanted for graft find refuge in Singapore, the city state is a place of grief for some Indonesian migrant workers, a study says.

The study, which was conducted recently by the Institute for Ecosoc Rights both in Indonesia and Singapore, was inspired by repeated deaths of Indonesian migrant domestic workers in the neighboring country over the last five years.

The institute said that the high mortality rate had a lot to do with poor working conditions. "Many workers bring home Singaporean dollars as capital to start small businesses, but many others return in coffins or are sent to jail for acts against their employers," the institute says.

From 1999 through December 2004, a total of 114 Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore died for various reasons.

There are almost 70,000 registered Indonesian migrants workers in the neighboring country, 53 percent of whom are domestic helpers, mostly women.

"For big-time Indonesian criminals, Singapore is a safe place to hide since the two countries have not signed an extradition treaty. But for many Indonesian domestic workers who live in poverty at home, the city state is like a killing field as they are not only overexploited but physically abused and trapped in forced labor," Sri Palupi, who coordinated the study, said over the weekend.

While Singapore restricts the entry of immigrants, Palupi said the country had failed to set minimum base standards for the employment of domestic workers, most of whom are not protected by Singaporean law due to their working in the informal, or household, sector.

The study was conducted between January and April this year in Singapore and in the regencies of Tulangbawang (Lampung), Cilacap (Central Java), Banyumas (Central Java) and Jember (East Java). It involved 120 former domestic workers employed in Singapore and 80 migrant workers who found themselves in trouble in Singapore as respondents.

Palupi said the study found the migrants were burdened by long working hours, heavy workloads and a lack of time off.

"Most respondents said they worked between 12 hours and 20 hours a day, and had no day off. They mostly do washing, cooking, baby-sitting and taking care of the elderly," she said.

Some respondents said they received inadequate meals and slept only around five hours a day.

They complained about living in their employers' small flats. This lead to physical abuse by their employers. Many workers were also dismissed without payment, Palupi said.

She added that the researchers were skeptical about reports that some Indonesian migrant workers died of serious illnesses or committed suicide, because they had undergone medical checks before departure and were not familiar with a suicidal culture.

The study also found that some domestic workers found themselves trapped in the equivalent of forced labor as their monthly salaries were cut for the first seven months of their employment to pay recruitment fees to their sponsors, and the fact that they were not allowed to go out or to make contact with outsiders, including relatives and the Indonesian Embassy.

Separately, Wahyu Susilo, coordinator of the Migrant Care organization in Jakarta, likened the employment of Indonesian domestic workers to slavery, and placed the blame for this squarely on the Indonesian government. "This slavery continues as the government lacks a strong bargaining position vis-a-vis foreign countries to make them protect our migrant workers. We cannot expect the workers themselves to be able to protect and defend themselves as they are uneducated, unskilled and lack the ability to adjust," he said.

 War on terror

Court upholds Bashir's guilty verdict

Australian Associated Press - May 16, 2005

Indonesia's high court has upheld a 2 1/2 year prison sentence for accused terror chief Abu Bakar Bashir for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, a court official said.

Lawyers for Bashir, whom Australia and the United States allege is the spiritual head of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah terror group, said they had yet to be informed of the decision but would appeal to the Supreme Court. Bashir was convicted in March of conspiracy in the Bali bombings.

Husein Kasing, a spokesman for Jakarta High Court, said judges had rejected the appeal filed by Bashir after that verdict. The court, which convenes behind closed doors, reached its verdict on May 11, but did not immediately publicise it, as is customary in Indonesia.

 Politics/political parties

PKI members cleared to proceed with suit

Jakarta Post - May 19, 2005

Jakarta -- The Central Jakarta District Court ruled on Wednesday that former members of the now-outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) could proceed with a class-action lawsuit against the President.

"Presiding judge Cicut Sutiarso read the court's decision that the class-action suit was legal. He ordered that we make a public announcement and provide an opportunity to withdraw from the suit for those people who wish to do so," said a legal representative for the group, Uli Parulian.

Uli said this initial ruling on the suit would be followed by a more substantial evaluation scheduled for July 20.

Some 14 representatives of the former PKI members filed a class action last month against current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and former presidents Soeharto, BJ Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Soekarnoputri.

The group is demanding that their economic, social and cultural rights be restored and that the government annul any laws that discriminate against former party members.

Anti-Mega group files police report

Jakarta Post - May 17, 2005

Jakarta -- A splinter group of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) filed a police report against party leader Megawati Soekarnoputri on Monday for her dismissal of 12 PDI-P members opposed to her leadership.

Two members of the splinter group, Roy B.B. Janis and Sukowaluyo Mintoharjo, filed the report at National Police Headquarters, saying the dismissals "defamed" the 12 PDI-P members.

Roy said there was no legal basis for the dismissal of the 12 members on May 10, following the PDI-P national congress that saw Megawati reelected for another five-year term as party leader.

"We are the founders of the party and we do not understand why we were dismissed. Even Pak Sukowaluyo, who is much more senior than Ibu Mega, was dismissed. Our names have been destroyed by these dismissals," Roy said.

The complaint also named PDI-P secretary-general Pramono Anung Wibowo, former manpower minister Jacob Nuwawea, Firman Jaya Daeli, Sabam Sirait, Alex Litaay, Suratal, Syarif Bastaman and Dwi Ria Latifa.

 Government/civil service

House set to flunk legislation target, again

Jakarta Post - May 18, 2005

Tony Hotland, Jakarta -- The House of Representatives is well on its way to failing in its lawmaking function, with zero laws passed and only a few bills drafted since its 550 members took office in October.

Bitter political bickering among lawmakers, grouped into two rival camps opposed to and in support of the current government, has interfered with their legislative work. During a plenary session on Tuesday, the House submitted bills on teachers and on the revision of Law No. 7/1989 on religious courts, for deliberation during the fourth sitting period that will end on July 8.

Earlier this month, the House announced that four other bills were scheduled to be discussed, namely one bill on the 2005 state budget revision, one on disaster management, one on the 2005-2025 national development program and one on the establishment of religious courts in North Maluku, Banten, Gorontalo and Bangka Belitung provinces.

The National Legislation Program, enacted by the House legislation body in January, consists of 284 bills that are prioritized for enactment during the 2005-2009 period as a reference for lawmakers in enacting laws.

Fifty-five bills have been prioritized for enactment over the course of this year, a task that remains far from completed.

House legislation body chairman Muhammad A.S. Hikam said chances were remote that the 55 bills would be passed this year, and put the blame on House commissions and the government.

The legislation body was tasked to come up with draft bills on its own initiative, but the main players in producing them were House commissions and the government, he said.

"We put out a list of bills prioritized for enactment. The realization is up to the House and the government, because they will be the ones to discuss and finalize the bills. We'll see if having a National Legislation Program helps the House to perform better," he said.

It was the legislation body, said Hikam, that produced the bill on the establishment of religious courts in four provinces.

"What's worse is that we racked our brains and went through the hassle of coming up with a bill, but we don't get to discuss it with the government as the job was given to a House commission instead," he said.

Among the 55 bills listed in the National Legislation Program are indeed pivotal ones, such as the revision of Law No. 17/2003 on state finances, on state secrecy, on freedom of information, on immigration and on witness protection.

Other bills are on health, on the capital market, on human trafficking, on forestry and on the revision of the Criminal Code.

"I got tired of reminding House Commission I (for information and security) to draft the bill on freedom of information, and it was all to no avail," said Hikam, a member of the commission.

He said the legislation body took the initiative to draft bills on the presidency, the presidential advisory board and on ministerial offices, all of which are also prioritized for this year.

The House's failure in its lawmaking function, and in other areas, is nothing new.

Lawmakers have been much criticized for being sluggish in carrying out their duties to produce comprehensive bills -- numerous revisions to and annulments of articles in laws by the Constitutional Court have been easy and common in the past year.

The House's plenary session on Tuesday was adjourned because fewer than 100 of its 550 members remained in their seats or even bothered to attend.

 Corruption/collusion/nepotism

Rp 2.7 trillion lost at state-owned firms

Jakarta Post - May 23, 2005

Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta -- Recently disclosed alleged irregularities at 16 state enterprises may have caused more than Rp 2.7 trillion (about US$287 million) in state losses, a report from the Office of the State Minister for State Enterprises says.

Leaked to a number of media outlets over the weekend, the report says of the total amount of allegedly abused funds, Rp 1.36 trillion came from three publicly listed firms: Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), gas utility firm PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) and pharmaceutical firm PT Indofarma.

The report found potential losses of some Rp 815 billion at BRI, which just replaced its president director, Rudjito.

The alleged losses at BRI are connected to two cases. The first involves suspected irregularities in the channeling of loans worth over Rp 745 billion in 2001 to the Domba Mas Group, which is in the plantation business. The second involves alleged kickbacks of Rp 70 billion for the installation of information technology systems at the bank.

A source at the state minister's office said the alleged loan irregularities at BRI had been reported to the government's anticorruption team, while the alleged procurement kickbacks had been reported to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

"The Office of the State Minister for State Enterprises has not yet replaced the executives (at BRI) because we are still focusing on replacing the president directors at all state enterprises," the source said.

BRI's newly installed corporate secretary, Suprajarto, denied the accusations and pledged to clarify the matter soon.

The state minister's office also disclosed possible irregularities at PGN in its Rp 500 billion investment in mutual funds, and alleged procurement kickbacks worth Rp 45 billion at Indofarma. The office is still conducting internal investigations of the two firms based on reports from the State Development Comptroller and the Supreme Audit Agency.

According to sources, State Minister for State Enterprises Sugiharto has asked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to issue a presidential regulation on the protection of witnesses to encourage people to report corruption at state enterprises and other institutions.

Sources at the State Secretariat said the regulation was likely to be issued shortly after the President arrived back from trips to the US and Japan next month.

Many, if not most, state firms in the country are known to be poorly managed and to suffer from low rates of return on investments, due mostly to corruption and intervention by vested interests -- which often regard the companies as cash cows for their own personal use.

As of last year, there were a total of 158 state firms with combined assets of Rp 1,200 trillion.

The Attorney General's Office is currently investigating alleged lending irregularities worth some Rp 12 trillion at publicly listed Bank Mandiri, the nation's largest lender.

The KPK, meanwhile, is expected to start looking into alleged procurement kickbacks in the installation of information technology systems at publicly listed Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

The case dates back to 2002 when BNI was under different management and is said to involve some Rp 98 billion.

Anti-graft campaign sees little progress: ICW

Jakarta Post - May 20, 2005

Jakarta -- Seven, for some, is a lucky number. Seven years since the reform movement kicked off a new era of democracy, the nation has only seen a tiny spark of hope, but many problems remain, activists say.

"There has been some progress in law enforcement," Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) coordinator Teten Masduki said during a discussion on Thursday sponsored by The Indonesian Institute, referring to current actions being taken by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

"The KPK has a mandate to use unprecedented methods, like entrapment, to catch corruptors," he said, adding that such actions also helped to discourage others from committing similar crimes, or at least made them more careful. However, a lot of work remains.

KPK head Taufiequrrahman Ruki admitted that the combination of a corruption-prone system combined with a people lacking integrity in addition to an inconsistent law enforcement system made the problems worse.

He added that the law enforcement authorities were still trying to figure out how to define corruption.

"Several judges in the ad hoc commission continue to debate whether the KPK can even investigate corruption cases that took place before the commission was established (in 2002)," he said, citing one example.

Ruki also mentioned that law enforcers were not supported by sufficient funding, and that was evidence that the government was lacking the will to fight corruption. "For example, the ad-hoc judges have not received their salary for seven months," he said.

"Not to mention the massive public permissiveness towards corruption... the problem is just taken for granted," he said, adding that public support was a very important aspect in the anti-graft campaign.

He said the KPK had received more than 4,000 reported cases of corruption in the last 18 months, of which only three cases had gone to court. The commission is currently focusing its investigations on 10 cases, including the bribery and corruption case involving the General Elections Commission (KPU).

Meanwhile, political observer Eep Saefulloh Fatah of The Indonesian Institute said the KPK's decision to deal with the corruption cases against the national election body should be used as momentum to raise public awareness and spark new hope.

"KPK, as one of the major agents of change, must have a clear strategy," he said. "What it has done should only be seen as an initial step that other agencies and groups should follow up on." Eep explained that a comprehensive strategy needs to involve 'clean' subjects of change, a stricter set of rules, strong authorities, public support and effective mechanisms to produce synergy.

"First of all, our law does not impose severe sanctions on corrupt officials of businesspeople," he said. "Secondly, corruption eradication actions have been lacking in the area of proper campaigns and communication with the public, resulting in continued ignorance in society." Public support, aside from bureaucratic problems in dealing with corruption, was emphasized as an important aspect.

"Some experts have said that our society's mindset is already corrupt," he said, while adding that it would be very difficult to change such a mindset.

Eep, Teten and Ruki concurred, that building public awareness to shun corruption practices was one of the most important issues. Such a movement, they said, should start from the simplest thing like teaching children at home the values of living honestly.

"In Australia, instead of teaching anticorruption values, people teach their children fairness," Teten said. "Practical implications of such a method have been proven to be more effective than rote memorization of what one should and should not do." Furthermore, the baseline for building an anticorruption attitude must be put upon social awareness, instead of only the abstract fear of committing a sinful act, he added.

Uncovered: 16 most corrupt state firms

Jakarta Post - May 20, 2005

Jakarta -- State Minister of State Enterprises Sugiharto finally disclosed on Thursday 16 state enterprises allegedly riddled with corruption, following demands from lawmakers who wanted to make the allegation widely known. During a hearing with House of Representatives Commission VI for trade, industry and state enterprises, Sugiharto said he had submitted the report on the allegation to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently.

The state minister said the graft included procurement kickbacks, unfair and opaque bidding processes, manipulation of financial reports and illegal fees.

The allegations are based on an internal investigation conducted by the Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises using the companies financial reports as well as audit reports from the Supreme Audit Agency and the State Development Comptroller.

The disclosure bolstered Susilo's campaign to combat corruption. State enterprises have long served as cash cows for unscrupulous officials as well as for organizations and political parties.

By maximizing state enterprises' performance, the government expects to reap more proceeds to help plug the widening state budget deficit due to the fuel subsidy.

Commission VI member Nusron Wahid said the government should identify what drove the losses and graft in the companies in order to be able to take the necessary steps in the future to address the problems.

"We should identify the root of the problem. If it's mismanagement, the option is restructuring the management. If it's not, another options could be privatizing the firms," he said.

Alleged corrupt SOEs

  1. Bank Rakyat Indonesia Banking
  2. Bank Mandiri Banking
  3. Bank Negara Indonesia Banking
  4. Perusahaan Listrik Negara Power
  5. Asuransi Jiwasraya Insurance
  6. Perusahaan Gas Negara Energy
  7. Indofarma Pharmaceutical
  8. Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia Trading
  9. Pupuk Kalimantan Timur Fertilizer
  10. Angkasa Pura I Airport operator
  11. Pelabuhan Indonesia II Seaport operator
  12. Pelabuhan Indonesia III Seaport operator
  13. ASDP Transportation
  14. Djakarta Lloyd Shipping
  15. Televisi Republik Indonesia Television station
  16. Radio Republik Indonesia Radio station

    [Source: Office of the State Minister of State Enterprises]

    KPU chairman faces new blow in corruption probe

    Jakarta Post - May 18, 2005

    Jakarta -- More witnesses and suspects have blamed General Elections Commission (KPU) chairman Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin for corruption at the national election organizer, making it more difficult for him to shrug off allegations over his role in the high-profile case.

    KPU deputy secretary-general Sussongko Suhardjo has said that Nazaruddin promised him "help" in return for testifying during the investigation in his favor.

    Sussongko affirmed that Nazaruddin had promised to provide legal help and to lobby certain institutions to get the charges reduced if Sussongko and KPU treasurer Hamdani Amin agreed to blame former KPU secretary-general Safder Yusaac for the corruption.

    "If that's the case, Nazaruddin is totally irresponsible," Yusaac said after undergoing yet another round questioning by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

    Both Sussongko and Hamdani have been declared suspects by the KPK for their alleged involvement in graft within the KPU involving the collection of a total of Rp 20 billion (US$2.10 million) in kickbacks from the KPU's election materials suppliers.

    The offers were made by Nazaruddin when Sussongko and Hamdani were summoned for the first time by the KPK following the arrest of KPU member Mulyana W. Kusumah, who was allegedly caught red- handed trying to bribe a state auditor.

    Yusaac accused Nazaruddin of being the one responsible for all the corruption allegations against the KPU as it was Nazaruddin who had instructed and ordered the collection of the kickbacks.

    Nazaruddin has been the named on many occasions by colleagues as the person primarily responsible for the collection and the distribution of the so-called tactical funds.

    The slush funds, collected at first to improve the welfare of KPU members, were said to have also been shared later on with officials from the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) and members of the House of Representatives.

    Sussongko's lawyer, Erick S. Paat, said BPK officials Harijanto and Djapiten Nainggolan, both members of the teams assigned to audit the KPU, had received Rp 100 million and Rp 350 million respectively.

    Nazaruddin himself has consistently denied knowing about the slush funds, let alone instructing their collection and distribution.

    KPK chief Taufiequrrahman Ruki said Nazaruddin would have to clarify the existence and use of the funds, while have been consistently referred to by the KPU as "tactical funds".

    "So far, there is little that points directly to Nazaruddin. But he is the chairman of the KPU and should explain about these funds," he said, adding that the KPK was likely to name more suspects this week.

    Nazaruddin is scheduled to be questioned by the KPK on Thursday.

    Ruki said the KPK had also set up three teams to investigate separate corruption cases in the KPU connected with the bribery allegations, the tactical funds, and the procurement of seven electoral items.

    "These teams will work simultaneously and confirm each other's work. In fact, we're getting new facts from the cross- examinations conducted by these three teams," he said.

    On Tuesday, the KPK questioned KPU deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti as well as two other KPU members, Valina Singka Subekti and Rusadi Kantaprawira.

    Both Valina and Rusadi were in charge of the procurement of principal electoral materials, which process is believed by the BPK to contain irregularities amounting to over Rp 90 billion.

    The KPK also questioned KPU treasurer Hamdani, deputy treasurer M. Dentjik, and PT Royal Sana director Guntur Sastrawijaya on Tuesday. Guntur's firm won a tender from the KPU.

    KPU chief further implicated in alleged graft case

    Jakarta Post - May 17, 2005

    Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- General Elections Commission (KPU) chief Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin was once again dealt a body blow on Monday that should make it harder for him to prove his innocence as another senior KPU official corroborated his role in alleged massive graft at the commission.

    Former commission secretary-general Safder Yusaac told reporters on Monday after hours of questioning by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) that Nazaruddin had given a verbal instruction to raise Rp 20 billion (US$2.10 million) in "tactical funds." These funds, largely collected in kickbacks from companies that supplied electoral materials, were intended to be shared out with KPU members and secretariat officials, legislators and officials of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).

    "Yes, the collection of tactical funds was verbally ordered by Pak Nazaruddin to be used to improve the welfare of KPU members," Safder said, adding that the instruction to collect the kickbacks could not be delegated to anyone else.

    He also admitted to personally giving money to the BPK when it started auditing the KPU's use of a Rp 3.9 trillion for the holding of last year's general elections.

    However, Safder did not clarify whether the payment had been suggested by the KPU or the BPK.

    Safder's admissions follow previous ones by KPU deputy secretary-general Sussongko Suhardjo and treasurer Hamdani Amin, who said Nazaruddin had ordered them to collect funds from supplier firms, and to pay the BPK.

    Both Sussongko and Hamdani have been declared suspects by the KPK, along with KPU member Mulyana W. Kusumah, who was caught red-handed proffering a bribe during a meeting.

    Mulyana has also said that part of the money used to bribe the BPK was approved by Nazaruddin.

    Nazaruddin has denied any knowledge or involvement in such activities, although he said late last week that he might have heard about a bribery plan but chose to ignore it.

    Hamdani said a total of Rp 520 million was paid in four installments to the BPK. The first two payments were made by Safder, while the last two were made by KPU deputy treasurer M. Dentjik.

    On Monday, former legislator Hamdan Zoelva, now with the Star Reform Party (PBR), visited the KPK office to meet with KPK chief Taufiequrrahman Ruki, who was absent at the time.

    Hamdan refused to make any comment, despite suspicion that he had come to return part of the "tactical funds". Hamdani previously said that a total of Rp 100 million had been shared with legislators.

    Meanwhile, KPU member Anas Urbaningrum confirmed on Monday that all KPU members had received honorariums in addition to their salaries, but claimed the payments were above board.

    "It was official. I can't say if they were legitimate or not, as this concerns a matter of legal definition. But all of the receipts and copies are official," he said.

    Anas said these honorariums, which were paid by the KPU treasurer, had also been reported to the BPK and were based on a KPU regulation.

    It now appears that the KPU chairman and deputy chairmen received Rp 14.5 million, while members received Rp 12.5 million each -- as well as a transportation allowance equivalent to 200 liters of gas per month.

    "The KPU deputy was involved in all the working groups, and the chairman and members were involved based on their job descriptions," Anas explained.

    Yudhoyono's war on corruption - Lots of talk, little action

    Straits Times - May 16, 2005

    Merle Ricklefs -- Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has just announced a new Coordinating Team for Corruption Eradication consisting of 51 prosecutors, police and financial officers.

    Is this a breakthrough in Indonesia's battle against corruption? Is this a step taken by a presidency that is successfully tackling Indonesia's challenges and addressing the needs of its people? To answer these questions, look back over Dr Yudhoyono's first six months as Indonesia's first popularly elected president.

    Last September, he won the presidency, along with Mr Jusuf Kalla as his vice-presidential running mate, with 61 per cent of over 114 million votes. Democracy was in action and hopes were high.

    From the start, Dr Yudhoyono said elimination of corruption would be one of his prime objectives. In his inaugural speech on Oct 20, he indicated his priorities as addressing economic growth, poverty, unemployment, the separatist movements in Aceh and Papua, health, education and good governance.

    'My administration will actively launch an anti-corruption programme which I myself will lead,' he said.

    But action was slow in coming. The Indonesian media and NGOs regularly expose corruption and press Dr Yudhoyono to act on his commitments. Last November, for example, massive and ecologically devastating illegal logging in Papua became public knowledge, implicating the local police and military.

    This was corruption on a large scale, with shiploads of illegal timber going out of the country, reportedly escorted by Indonesian naval vessels.

    In March 2005, senior figures of the Papua forestry service were detained, but no high-level military or police officers have yet been arrested.

    So military impunity seems still to prevail, as it has also in the case of trials over human-rights abuses in the former East Timor in which every senior military figure has been acquitted.

    Last November, Attorney-General Abdul Rahman Saleh promised to complete several hundred pending corruption cases within three months. Three months later, few cases had been completed.

    On Dec 10, Dr Yudhoyono said he had authorised the investigations of two provincial governors, six members of national parliament, four regency heads and two mayors. But activists were asking: 'Where were the arrests and convictions?'

    The following day, Mr Jusuf set up a joint investigative team from the A-G's department, the Ministry of justice and Human Rights and the police in an attempt to make greater progress.

    Small victories

    There were, however, signs of action on corruption below the national level. Across the country, many local parliamentary members and local government officers were accused of corruption by activists, police and the judiciary.

    Suddenly it was no longer unusual to learn that a governor, a mayor, a regency head or a member of local parliament was being interrogated, detained, charged and even found guilty.

    So we began to see here a pattern reflected across the nation: The weak centre in Jakarta, with a poorly functioning bureaucracy riddled with corruption and with many of its resources and much of its authority devolved to local governments under a regional autonomy law, was less able to act than the local governments supported by honest people and civil society movements. Much of Indonesian politics is now local politics.

    The first big fish to be caught at the national level was then Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh. In early December 2004, he was accused of taking a large cut from the inflated price of a Russian helicopter purchased by his government.

    His trial began amid much scepticism that so senior a figure would actually be convicted.

    At the end of last year, the Indonesian Institute of Learned Sciences (LIPI) provided a year-end assessment of Dr Yudhoyono's government. The Cabinet was unimpressive and coordination among ministers was poor, it said. The anti-corruption drive was mere rhetoric.

    By this time, many observers were concluding that Dr Yudhoyono's wish to end corruption and to ameliorate the circumstances of the poor was genuine, but he lacked the will, personal capacity and governmental machinery to make these things actually happen. Dr Yudhoyono was proving adept in public relations but not at changing Indonesian society, regardless of his massive mandate.

    Then came the terrible, almost unimaginable tragedy of the Dec 26 earthquake and tsunami. Measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, the earthquake was the largest in the world in 40 years. Nearly a quarter of a million Indonesians were dead or missing in Aceh and North Sumatra.

    This was only the first of a series of damaging natural events in Indonesia.

    Aftershocks continue on a daily basis in Aceh. Earthquakes and floods have occurred across the archipelago. In March, the island of Nias was hit by an 8.7-magnitude earthquake and hundreds more died. In April, Mount Talang in Sumatra erupted and 40,000 people were evacuated.

    As the Aceh tragedy continued to unfold and the evidence of poverty and hardship among very many Indonesians across the archipelago was clear for all to see, the government had to address reconstruction in Sumatra and endemic poverty everywhere.

    Potential pitfall

    A major question was what to do about fuel subsidies. These were estimated to have cost the government 59.2 trillion rupiah (S$10.4 billion) last year and to amount to 70 trillion rupiah this year.

    In December, a fuel price rise of 40 per cent was foreshadowed by Mr Jusuf. Such a rise across the board for all categories of fuel would be devastating for the poor. Mr Jusuf's image was increasingly of a more effective and efficient but less congenial person than Dr Yudhoyono, and one suspected of being less committed to reform.

    In December, Mr Jusuf won the race to be chairman of Golkar, which overnight transformed the majority of the national parliament, making it pro-government.

    Because Golkar had been a major channel for corruption and patronage under former dictator Suharto and -- despite depicting itself as the 'New Golkar' -- is still much inclined to 'money politics', activists feared that the anti-corruption drive would be impeded.

    Mr Jusuf carries the main responsibility for reconstruction work in Aceh -- perhaps a poisoned chalice for the Vice-President. For there can be no doubt that the billions of dollars to be spent in Aceh will generate much corruption.

    Measures will be taken to minimise criminality in the disbursement of aid, for the donor countries and multiple NGOs will be watching closely.

    The newly appointed head of the Aceh rehabilitation and reconstruction executive body, former energy and mineral resources minister Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, insists that corruption will not be tolerated. But he cannot produce miracles.

    Who will detect when wages are paid to 500 workers but only 480 are employed, or when 20 tonnes of building material is paid for but only 18 is delivered?

    A small vignette: A few weeks ago I happened to overhear an Indonesian businessman in energetic conversation with someone on his mobile phone about building a hospital in Aceh. As the costs of this project were discussed, he said to whomever was on the other end of the conversation: 'And that's 10 per cent for the local government and 10 per cent for me.' Some bargaining followed until 7.5 per cent was agreed on. There will be many such discussions already under way in Indonesia.

    Dr Yudhoyono and his advisers certainly know that there will be corruption and that some of it will become known. It would not be surprising if he should prefer the inevitable mud to stick to Mr Jusuf than to himself.

    But back to the vexed social and political issue of domestic fuel prices. The government resolved in February to raise fuel prices by an average of 29 per cent with effect from March 1, but with protections for the poor. The price of household kerosene was unchanged, while that for automotive and industrial fuels went up. The differential between household kerosene and other prices immediately generated scams. Petrol stations mixed cheap kerosene with petrol and thus increased their profit margins. Scarcity of kerosene was reported in some areas as the cheap household product was diverted to other purposes.

    Meanwhile, the promised financial support for the poor failed to flow for weeks after the prices had gone up, blocked by bureaucratic inefficiency and the usual stickiness of funding as it goes through Indonesian pipelines.

    A breakthrough?

    Yet there were good signs, too. In March the first steps were taken towards a state-funded medical insurance scheme for the poor. This would give them free access to polyclinics and a prescribed level of hospital care. The prices of generic medicines began to be cut. This was limited in scope at the initial stages and undoubtedly people will find ways to corrupt the system, but it is nevertheless a positive development.

    Rising public dissatisfaction is confirmed by opinion polls. Over and over again, dissatisfaction is expressed at the slow pace of the anti-corruption campaign.

    As noted above, the real action on corruption mainly occurs below the national level. Hundreds of local parliamentarians have been declared suspects, detained, charged and in some cases jailed. As of March, out of 35 regencies in Central Java province, such cases were being pursued in 21. This pattern was replicated across the archipelago.

    But by the beginning of April this year, there was not yet a single large-scale, national-level crook who had been charged, found guilty and imprisoned since Dr Yudhoyono's inauguration.

    When Dr Yudhoyono was in Australia in April, he promised again a war on corruption. These promises were beginning to sound like a broken record.

    Then what may be a major breakthrough occurred. The special Anti-Corruption Court -- the target of much cynicism among activists -- found Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh guilty of embezzling nearly 4 billion rupiah. He was ordered to repay all of that, was fined another 500 million rupiah and jailed for 10 years, even though prosecutors had asked only for an eight-year term. There was much surprise and delight among anti-corruption activists at this outcome.

    This was followed by revelations of corruption in the General Election Commission -- which, with its massive contracts for making ballot boxes, printing and distributing the hundreds of millions of ballot papers, supplying ink and such like, was a rich source of shady deals.

    The irony here is that the commission consists largely of civil society activists, so the revelations constitute a sober reminder of how very difficult it will be to tackle graft in a society characterised by poverty and pervasive corruption that reaches into the very institutions on which reform depends.

    On April 28, a week and six months after his inauguration, Dr Yudhoyono announced -- yet again -- a large-scale anti-corruption drive that would begin with the offices of the President and Vice-President themselves. 'I want to clean my own house,' he said.

    That was what he said six months before. That was what he has said several times since.

    And now he has formed his new 51-person Coordinating Team for Corruption Eradication. People are already asking how this body will avoid tripping over the special anti-corruption bodies already created.

    Deeds must follow

    Dr Yudhoyono knows that corruption pervades every part of the government, so if there is to be reform, he must lead it himself.

    But as president he cannot be out there counting the dollars and checking the contracts in government agencies across the nation. He must rely on his officials, of whom there are few he can trust. There are some outstanding, honest opponents of corruption available to him, but he has yet to show that he can empower and support them fully.

    We must accept that official fraud will never be eliminated in Indonesia any more than criminality can ever be 100 per cent eliminated in any country. But the situation in Indonesia is so extreme that it represents a core problem for the nation.

    Indonesia illustrates a dilemma of those who seek 'good governance' in such nations. If official salaries are so low that some people can only feed their families by tapping unofficial sources of income, if senior figures have opportunities to make vast amounts of money, and if the very arms of government on which good governance must depend are riddled with corruption, how does one implement reform?

    Which official will be the first to declare that he will withdraw his children from school, stop buying clothes for his family and spend most of his salary on the bus fare to work so that his department can be free of corruption?

    But we might hope that more people at the top will be prepared to say that there will be no more weekend shopping trips to Singapore or Perth -- especially if the prospects of getting caught with their hands in the till increase.

    So far, there are grounds for hope that local-level police and justice officials will continue to act against corrupt local politicians and their cronies.

    The national picture, however, remains mixed. We need to bear in mind an important thing about the presidency in Indonesia.

    After many years of a strong presidency under Suharto, both Indonesians and foreign observers tend to look to Jakarta for national solutions.

    But in this age of regional autonomy, after two presidents who either did nothing or created chaos, the presidency is much weakened. Its powers in domestic affairs are now in large measure symbolic.

    Dr Yudhoyono's repeated announcements of an anti-corruption campaign that he would lead symbolise something important. If his gestures are supported by real action from the Anti-Corruption Court, progress is possible. But Dr Yudhoyono cannot simply order a ban on corruption and then watch it take effect across his vast nation.

    One should not give in to pessimism about Indonesia. There are many creative, honest, hopeful people there and many positive things going on. But until the rule of law is strengthened and corruption significantly ameliorated, many other positive developments could prove to be in vain. If that were to happen, then disgruntled, disillusioned Indonesians could begin to lose their faith in democracy as an answer to their problems.

    Meanwhile, as far as Transparency International is concerned, Indonesia remains the fifth most corrupt country in the world.

    [Professor Merle Ricklefs will take up a visiting professorship at the National University of Singapore in August. He is also an honorary professor at Monash University and an adjunct professor at the Australian National University.]

    Tactical fund: no receipts, no questions asked

    Jakarta Post - May 16, 2005

    Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta -- The ongoing corruption investigation into the General Election Commission (KPU) centers more on who among its members got how much money. Naturally, the focus is on the men and women on the commission because they were picked for their clean reputation and track records. That they should now fall from grace (or be about to) because they succumbed to temptation like most other human beings is what makes this story juicy.

    Little attention, it seems, is being lavished on the existence of what is officially called the tactical fund -- the account from which the money allegedly being parceled to the KPU members had come from. We have learned, from the KPU treasurer's own admission, that the fund itself was money accumulated from "gratuities" given by KPU's contractors and suppliers.

    That the presence of the fund has raised so few eyebrows reflects, by and large, the wide public acceptance of such an account and of the business practices associated with it. There seems to be nothing out of the ordinary about such a fund.

    Many companies, and even most government and non-governmental institutions in this country, have such an account in their books, though it may be called by different names. In all likelihood, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which is investigating the KPU case, also runs such a fund.

    Essentially, a tactical fund is used for expenditure for which there will be no receipts. They are items that you find difficult to account for. When you operate in a country as corrupt as Indonesia, expect the unexpected. Those who have operated in this country long enough know this, and have budgeted for this unexpected, or rather unaccounted, expenditure.

    This may include money to bribe petty government officials to secure business permits and licenses, work permits, visas and other documents; even if you don't need to offer a bribe, money helps to speed up the process. It may be payments to journalists to ensure favorable reporting or to the local security authorities or thugs to ensure the safety of your premises. On a larger scale, it may be bribes, gifts, gratuities or kickbacks to secure your contracts.

    In most cases, there are no receipts as proof that such payments have been made. Hence, it is easy to see where the name tactical fund comes from: it is spending what is considered to be part of business tactics. Your accountant may accept this as legitimate expenditure and book it under that account.

    The flip side of the lack of transparency and accountability of this tactical fund is that it may also be freely used, as in the case of KPU, as an account to receive money for which, again, no receipts are required or even made. The KPU treasurer, Hamdani Amin, disclosed that the commission received $1.15 million as gratuities -- or kickbacks really -- from its many contractors and suppliers.

    Notwithstanding the amount (and that is a hell of a big tip), the practice suggests that the contractors won their bids -- for the ink, the ballot papers and boxes, utensils, and what-have-you -- not necessarily because they were the most competitive, but more likely because of collusion involving insiders, whoever they might be.

    If the contractors could afford to return so much money to the commission's treasure chest in the form of kickbacks, logically they could have offered much lower prices in the first place, and they would have saved the nation's taxpayers tons of money. It also raises questions about the margin of markup they were allowed to get away with by the KPU. Saving taxpayers' money obviously is something alien to the contractors and to the KPU.

    The practice of taking kickbacks from contractors is also regarded as nothing out of the ordinary by most people and seemingly by the investigators of the case, because this has become a common business practice in this country.

    So common perhaps that even KPU members who accepted money from their treasurer (who is a civil servant loaned from the Ministry of Home Affairs) never asked questions about the origins of the money.

    They accepted at face value the treasurer's explanation that the money, which came on top of their Rp 15 million monthly salary, was for payments for taking part in activities related to their work at the commission. Had they bothered to ask the questions, they probably could have prevented this scandal and returned the money to the rightful owner: the taxpayers.

    But then, this is the sort of payments that the less questions you ask, the better it is for you. You can at least proclaim your innocence later on, should anyone inquire about the money.

    Slush funds have not only been given a degree of respectability with an official title, but they have also been deemed as a normal and acceptable way of running a business in this country, largely because of our indifference.

    It is beyond the scope of the investigators at the KPK to look into the practice of managing tactical funds in this country, especially since public attention is more focused on the high profile figures involved. The money involved certainly puts it in the small league in the normally high stake corruption game.

    But the investigation could at least trigger a review of business practices commonly found in this country, including the giving of gratuities by contractors and running tactical funds.

    If we could have saved $1.15 million alone from the KPK, imagine the savings we would be making from all the other state and government institutions if we do away with tactical funds. The current anticorruption campaign would do well to take up this issue.

    In the meantime, one valuable lesson we can take from the KPU corruption case is that from now on, lest we want to follow in the unfortunate steps of the KPU members, we had better start asking for receipts for all payments we make, and asking probing questions for all payments received.

    [The writer is chief editor of The Jakarta Post.]

     Media/press freedom

    Journalists protest colleagues' jail term

    Jakarta Post - May 17, 2005

    Bandar Lampung -- Hundreds of journalists and activists rallied here on Monday to protest the use of Criminal Code to imprison two local tabloid editors for defamation recently.

    On May 4, the Bandarlampung District Court sentenced Koridor chief editor Darwin Ruslinur and managing editor Budiono Syahputro to nine months in jail and ordered their immediate imprisonment after finding them guilty of defaming local Golkar Party leader Alzier Dianis Thabranie.

    However, Lampung High Court chief Rapotan Harahap ordered the district court on Thursday to delay the imprisonment of the editors, pending a legally binding decision handed down by the Supreme Court.

     Regional/communal conflicts

    Policeman involved in Seram attack: Chief

    Jakarta Post - May 20, 2005

    M. Azis Tunny and Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Ambon/Denpasar -- Two of the eight people who attacked a police post on Monday on Seram island were active police personnel, a top officer in Maluku said on Thursday. Seven people, including five police officers and one of the attackers, died in the incident.

    One of the officers suspected of involvement in the attack has been arrested, while the other officer is still at large, said Maluku Police chief Brig. Gen. Adityawarman.

    "There were eight perpetrators in the attack. One was shot dead and two others have been arrested, namely a police officer and another suspect, N, a member of a hard-line Muslim group in Ambon," said Adityawarman during a press conference in the Maluku capital of Ambon.

    According to Adityawarman, police are currently searching for five other suspects in the attack, including a police officer. Adityawarman said the attack was led by Dahlan, alias Asep, who was arrested by the police a few hours after the incident in Batumerah subdistrict, Ambon city.

    He said Dahlan and N were believed to have received military- style training in Moro, the Philippines, where Muslim fighters have been fighting for independence for years.

    According to Adityawarman, the police post that was attacked in West Seram regency was located on the border between Muslim and Christian subdistrict, but added that it was premature to conclude the attack was religiously motivated.

    He said the two suspects in custody had confessed to attacking the police post because officers there were protecting the Christian subdistrict rather than the Muslim one, but investigators were still looking into the motive behind the attack. "Some residents told police investigators that when the attack took place, the attackers ordered residents in the Christian subdistrict to stay at home to prevent fatalities," said Adityawarman.

    He said that from statements given by residents, it appeared the attackers were only targeting police personnel at the post, leading investigators to question whether the violence was religiously motivated.

    The arrest of two suspects in the Seram attack has helped shed light on a string of recent armed attacks in the province of Maluku. The suspects have told investigators that the same people behind the Seram incident were responsible for the earlier attacks in Maluku.

    A group of armed men launched an assault in Wamkana subdistrict on Buru island last year that killed three people. In separate incidents in February, groups of attackers fired on the a ship near Buru and the Villa cafe in Hative Besar, Ambon city, killing four people. Police have arrested six people in connection with these attacks and are still searching for additional suspects.

    Seven people die in Maluku attack

    Jakarta Post - May 17, 2005

    Ambon, Jakarta -- Seven people, including five police officers, died during a predawn attack by unidentified gunmen in troubled Maluku province on Monday.

    The attackers hit the East Kalimantan's Mobile Brigade (Brimob)'s operations command post in Loki village, Piru district, West Seram regency at 3 a.m. local time, or 2 a.m. Jakarta time, reportedly using military standard-issue firearms. An attacker and a civilian were also killed in the incident.

    "We don't know the identity of the attackers yet, only that they numbered around six people and used automatic weapons," Maluku Police spokesman Comr. Endro Prasetyo told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

    The Brimob officers killed in the incident were Brig. Roni Susanto, Brig. Hasanuddin, Brig. Teguh Arif Priyanto, First Brig. Slamet Haryanto and Chief Brig. Damanik. Five other police officers based at the post survived.

    A civilian, Simon Petrus Saepali, 23, who worked in the post as a cook, was also shot dead. Meanwhile, the police have yet to identify the dead attacker. "The attackers might have received training as the dead from Brimob were mostly shot in the head," Endro said.

    He said that from his smashed cheekbone, it looked like the dead attacker had been shot at close range by the other attackers. "Maybe, they did this to prevent us from tracking them down. If he had lived, he could have divulged their identities," Endro said.

    Later on Monday, the bodies of the dead officers were taken to Bhayangkara Police Hospital in Ambon by boat. The police also seized weapons and ammunition left behind by the attackers.

    The paramilitary police officers had been based in Loki village, some 40 kilometers away from the West Seram regental capital of Piru, for the last five months.

    Endro said the attackers reportedly came from the sea by speedboat, and that the attack appeared to be well planned as the attackers had concentrated their assault on the police post. "After conducting the attack, they returned to the beach and left by speedboat," he said.

    The village has no electricity as power infrastructure in the area was destroyed during the long conflict in the province. "The gunmen organized their attack in such a way that when the shooting started, the officers, who were sleeping at the time, panicked and became easy targets," he said.

    The police also suspected that some of the attackers were injured in the incident after finding blood stains at the location. "So far, we're still collecting information from local people," he said.

    The chief of the Maluku Police's criminal investigation unit, Sr. Comr. Bambang Hermanu, said that three witnesses had been questioned over the incident. They were speedboat driver Libid and his crew members, Anggato and Rinto.

    Pattimura military commander Maj. Gen. Syarifudin Summah told journalists on Monday that he had deployed a team to Loki to find who was responsible for the attack, had placed a company of soldiers in Piri at the disposal of the police.

    Separately, National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Zainuri Lubis told the Post on Monday that the police had identified any connection between the attackers and South Maluku Republic (RMS) supporters.

    "Right now, we're investigating the case to find out who the attackers were and what was their motive was as all of the Brimob officers were shot at close range in the head," Zainuri said.

    So far, he said, the police could only say that the attackers were a "group of unidentified persons". "We haven't even identified the dead attacker found at the crime scene," Zainuri admitted.

    The police, he said, would conduct ballistic tests on the weapons and ammunition recovered at the scene.

     Local & community issues

    Residents block Ambon street

    Jakarta Post - May 23, 2005

    Ambon -- Residents from the Batumerah subdistrict blocked a main street in Ambon city from Friday night to Saturday morning to protest police detentions of several locals.

    The blockade of a main thoroughfare leading into the Batumerah area caused large traffic jams. It was voluntarily called off after Ambon police Adj. Sr. Comr. Leonidas Braksan spoke to the demonstrators on Saturday.

    Police had earlier detained residents from the area in their search for the perpetrators of string of armed attacks in the city, including the attack on the Villa Cafe in February that killed two people.

     Focus on Jakarta

    New toll roads will not cure chronic congestion

    Jakarta Post - May 23, 2005

    Damar Harsanto, Jakarta -- The Jakarta administration's plan to build more toll roads connecting busy areas might be seen as a good idea to some people, but transportation experts believe they could cause greater congestion.

    The Indonesia Transportation Society (MTI) chairman Bambang Susantono emphasized that out of the many projects planned, expected to cost over Rp 23 trillion (approximately US$2.4 billion) to construct a total of 85.3 kilometers of toll roads would only benefit a relative few -- mostly private car owners.

    "Constructing the (inner city) toll roads will allow more vehicles to enter the already busy central business areas... it's like sending the floods in," he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

    Bambang said that the toll roads would cause traffic further congestion at the toll exit/entrance gates in the city center because the limited road capacity available would be able to handle to the massive influx of traffic.

    He explained that it was this same argument that brought about the cancellation of the toll road construction project linking Bekasi and Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta back in 1990.

    "There was a decision made at that time that the city's narrow streets in Kampung Melayu would not be able to accommodate larger traffic flows," he said.

    The project was revived as part of the planned construction of seven new toll roads -- not six as reported previously -- the Kemayoran-Kampung Melayu, Rawa Buaya-Sunter-Kampung Melayu-Duri Pulo via Tomang, Sunter-Pulogebang, Ulujami-Tanah Abang and Pasar Minggu-Casablanca routes.

    The massive project will begin next March and is expected to finish by 2009.

    Soetanto Soehodho Mahry, a professor of transportation engineering from the University of Indonesia, who chairs the university's Center for Transportation Studies (CTS), also urged the administration to focus more on developing public transportation.

    Soetanto claimed that motorists would only enjoy a brief respite from the chronic traffic congestion. "But the gridlock will return as long as the administration had no policy to curb rapid growth of car ownership in the city," the City Transportation Council chairman told the Post.

    Every day, at least 138 new cars flood city streets, putting more burden on the already overcrowded roads, most of which are community streets and lanes. Not to mention the 600,000 drivers who commute in from suburban areas, like Bekasi and Tangerang.

    Soetanto also warned that the presence of another elevated road in the capital, combined with all the other buildings buildings and structures, would make the city uglier.

    Soetanto highlighted the paramount importance of the administration to prioritize a variety of public transportation projects, which would have a greater impact on the majority of Jakarta's residents, rather than just the private vehicle owners.

    "I'd prefer see the development of a subway system rather than more elevated highways, which will actually server far fewer residents. In my calculation, the construction of the subway would only cost between Rp 150 billion and Rp 200 billion per kilometer, much cheaper than the elevated toll roads," he said.

    The planned toll roads are expected to cost over Rp 270 billion per kilometer. "Besides benefiting the public in general, the subway will not affect the city's esthetics as it be mostly underground," he said.

    Monorail project not viable now: Activists

    Jakarta Post - May 20, 2005

    Damar Harsanto, Jakarta -- As the expiry date of the contract between the city administration and PT Jakarta Monorail draws near without agreement, transportation activists are calling for an end to the agreement, arguing the project is simply not feasible.

    Activists from the Indonesia Transportation Society (MTI), the New York-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and non-governmental organization Pelangi said earlier this week that the project would only force the taxpayers to shoulder the costly endeavor through expensive subsidies.

    "The administration should make an evaluation of the contract and look deeper into the possibility of calling off the deal before it gets more difficult for the administration to withdraw from the deal," MTI chairman Bambang Susantono told The Jakarta Post.

    Walter Hook of the ITDP concurred with Bambang, saying that the monorail project was not viable. "I believe that the monorail will serve few people very well and not the majority. But most people will pay for it," Hook said.

    Hook said his NGO carried out a survey of 120,000 passengers using public transport along the planned monorail routes and discovered that the demand for the monorail service very low.

    ITDP estimated that the monorail's blue line would serve 25,000 passengers daily, while the green line only 7,000 riders, much lower than the 77,562 and 38,650 passengers projected earlier by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency on the Study of Integrated Transportation Master Plan for the Greater Jakarta (SITRAMP).

    "The reason why the demand is very low is because the monorail has poor connections with the rest of the public transportation (services) and its fare of Rp 5,000 a single trip is much higher than the bus fares," Hook said.

    PT Jakarta Monorail, handpicked to develop the monorail, has requested the city administration help subsidize the monorail project to maintain the fares at an affordable price of Rp 5,000. It also asked the administration to impose electronic road pricing along the monorail's routes to force motorists to switch from their private cars to monorail cars.

    Hook said that he would prefer the busway to the monorail owing to wide difference in the investment costs. "The construction of one kilometer of busway corridor costs around US$1 million, while the monorail spends at least $58 million per kilometer." Jakarta could develop entire busway routes across the city with the same amount of money earmarked for the monorail project, he said.

    Pelangi policy analyst Andi Rahmah, who is also a member of the Jakarta Transportation Council, said the busway outweighed the monorail in terms of sustainability. "The investment as well as maintenance costs of the busway are much less than the monorail. We don't even need to subsidize the project since the operation of the busway will be able to cover maintenance costs, and even make profits," she said.

    The fate of the 28-kilometer monorail project remains unclear, although the concession contract between the administration and its private partner, PT Jakarta Monorail, will expire on May 31.

    The agreement was signed on May 31, 2004. Under the agreement, signed by Governor Sutiyoso and JM president director Ruslan Diwiryo, the company is required to complete a financial close within a year, which could be extended for another six months. Beyond that, the two parties may have to sign another agreement.

    Sutiyoso said that he would extend the contract to give more time for the company to close a deal with potential financiers.

     Environment

    Indonesia going nuclear by 2017

    Xinhua News - May 21, 2005

    Indonesian State Minister for Research and Technology Kusmayanto Kadiman said on Friday that the government would develop nuclear technology by 2017 for various peaceful purposes, including power generation. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world.

    "The energy policy strategy is focused on the plan to develop a nuclear power plant by 2017," Kusmayanto was quoted by the official Antara news agency as saying. The plan, which did not specify a possible location for the plant, required a more detailed assessment, the minister said after opening a maritime industry exhibition in the East Java capital of Surabaya.

    When asked about the dangers of nuclear power, the official said any technology could pose dangers, which was why serious study and preparation were required. "Even coal-fired power plants have the potential to explode," he said.

    Indonesia's possible turn to nuclear power isn't a surprise. The state-run electricity company PLN announced in 2004 its plan to build a nuclear power plant in Central Java.

    Correspondingly, the World Nuclear Association has one planned reactor for Indonesia in its database-a 600MWe-net plant, with no operational data available (start date, contractor, etc.) Indonesian officials earlier this year were discussing six 1,000 MW nuclear plants.

    And in April 2005, the spokesman of Indonesia's nuclear regulatory agency (BAPETEN) told AFP that the first power station project would be tendered in 2008 for start of construction in 2010 and production in 2016.

    According to the EIA, 87% of Indonesia's 21.4 gigawatts of electrical generating capacity comes form thermal (oil, gas and coal), 10.5% from hydropower, and 2.5% from geothermal.

    Indonesia is facing an electricity supply crisis, with some observers predicting that PLN may be unable to take on any new customers by 2005. Intermittent blackouts are already an issue across Java. Demand for electrical power is expected to grow by approximately 10% per year for the next ten years. The majority of Indonesia's electricity generation is currently fueled by oil, but efforts are underway to shift generation to lower-cost coal and gas-powered facilities. Geothermal energy and hydropower are also being investigated. (EIA) Indonesia is a member of OPEC, but the decline in its crude oil production (earlier post) is turning it from an exporter to an importer-making the electricity situation all the more difficult. The country has tried to shift towards using its natural gas resources for power generation, but the domestic natural gas distribution infrastructure is inadequate. The main domestic customers for natural gas are fertilizer plants and petrochemical plants, followed by power generators.

    Interestingly, unlike another Muslim country much in the news which has electricity generation problems, plans to address that problem with a nuclear option, and has military prospects, Indonesia (Indonesia is cooperating with China on missle development) actually has, according again to the EIA, a large potential for renewable energy.

    Solar/PV technology is an attractive option in Indonesia because the country is fragmented among numerous small islands, making a comprehensive grid difficult to construct.

    Indonesia possesses significant hydroelectric potential, but has done little to exploit it. There is a government-built, 5,600- megawatts (MW) hydropower plant in Irian Jaya to support economic development. Java also has several hydropower facilities. Their combined installed capacity is 2,550 MW.

    Indonesia has significant geothermal energy potential. The "Ring of Fire," the world's most active volcanic zone, stretches along the southern coast of the islands of Sumatra and Java. Exploitation of geothermal resources remains highly tentative, however. According to a February 2002 report by the US Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia had developed 787 MW of geothermal capacity. This represented only 4% of its estimated geothermal potential of 20,000 MW. About 40% of this potential is located in Java and Bali, the two most populous islands in the Indonesian archipelago.

     Gender issues

    Criminal Code revision fails to address domestic violence

    Jakarta Post - May 17, 2005

    Jakarta -- The draft revision of the Criminal Code has sparked new concerns about gender questions, specifically with regard to female and morality issues, a scholar said.

    Criminologist Harkristuti Harkrisnowo of the University of Indonesia told a discussion on Monday that the draft failed to address domestic violence, which is a crime in nature but has been widely ignored in the male-dominated nation.

    "Clauses on marital rape and domestic violence are not included," Harkristuti said. "What is meant by violence is not only physical violence, but also sexual and psychological violence." She asked the government-sanctioned team assigned to draft the revision to the Criminal Code to spend more time to explain to and discuss it with the public.

    The increasing cases of violence against women led to the drafting and enforcement of the law on domestic violence last year. According to the law, any type of violence taking place in the home, including marital rape, is a crime.

    The revision of the Criminal Code, which is a legacy of the Dutch colonial government, has also drawn criticism for endangering freedom of the press.

    Another panelists at the discussion, deputy chairman of the Press Council RH Siregar, said the draft did not present an authentic interpretation of terms such as hatred, defamation and hostility, was very general in scope and was open to interpretation.

    He said that the present Criminal Code contained articles, known as haatzaai artikelen (articles on sowing hatred) that could destroy the press.

    For example, Article 154 of the Code states that any person who publicly insults the government is liable to a maximum seven years in prison.

    The new draft also threatens the press with a maximum of 10 years in prison for those advocating communism, Marxism and Leninism. Tough prison terms can also be imposed for insulting the head of state or insulting public authorities and state institutions.

    Journalists can be jailed for a year and barred from carrying out their profession for publishing doubtful or incomplete reports that lead to public disturbances, the draft says.

    Despite the controversy, the team drawing up the revision insisted that the draft amendment of the Criminal Code was structured under the principle of pluralism.

    The head of the team, Muladi, said he expect the draft to be completed this week.

    "Next week, the draft will be presented to the justice minister, and the minister will pass it on to the House of Representatives," Muladi, a former justice minister, said.

    He deemed the controversy a consequence of the pluralism the nation maintained.

    He predicted the House would need a year or two to finish the deliberation of the draft law, which contains 720 articles.

    "There will be a period of transition after the draft has been discussed and it will need explaining before it is decreed," he said.

    Women stall review of marriage law

    Jakarta Post - May 16, 2005

    Jakarta -- What could be more ironic than being opposed by fellow women when one intends to defend women's rights in matrimony? "May God lead her to the right path," scholar Nabilah Lubis said referring to Siti Musdah Mulia, the leader of the Ministry of Religious Affairs' committee on gender mainstreaming, which produced a white paper on the revision of the Islamic Law Code, as if Musdah had been what Muslims refer to as "misled".

    Nabilah's comment was greeted by a chorus of Amens from the predominantly female audience during a discussion on marriage law organized by the country's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama.

    Late last year, Musdah and her committee published a white paper for a new Islamic law code, which sparked acrimonious debate over such issues as allowing interfaith marriages, prohibiting polygamy and promoting gender equality.

    The forum, however, raised fundamental questions as to whether prevailing interpretations of Islamic law are open to debate.

    The white paper, which deals also with inheritance rights for non-Muslim children and a woman's right to divorce, was accused of being out of line with the Koran.

    Minister of Religious Affairs M. Maftuh Basyuni shelved the controversial draft on Feb. 14 for fear it might generate conflict among Muslims. The majority of both the speakers and members of the audience attending the seminar insisted that there were some things in Islamic law that could not be questioned as they were clearly stated in the Koran.

    "Some of the fiqh (generally accepted/official interpretations of the Koran and Sunnah) stated expressly in the Koran or Sunnah must be accepted as they are and cannot be changed under any circumstances," Nabilah said.

    She stressed that the prohibition on interfaith marriage and the permitting of polygamy were clearly stated in the Koran, and to suggest otherwise was contrary to Islamic law.

    Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) research and development unit head Huzaemah Tahido Yanggo supported Nabilah's comments and added that the white paper had the potential to mislead the public at large and should have not been published without prior consultation with more experienced ulema.

    Despite the harsh criticism of the draft, a more enlightened and objective perspective was voiced by a male member of the audience, who said that Islamic law should also be interpreted equitably, rather than just literally. This would mean the need for a contextual, not literal, interpretation of Islamic law.

    The committee started out on its work with the objective of responding to various social phenomena, such as domestic violence -- which was reported by the National Commission on Violence Against Women to have increased from 7,787 reported cases in 2003 to 14,020 cases in 2004 -- and child trafficking.

    Musdah responded to both the criticism and support by underlining that Islam is not a religion that is black and white. There were also gray areas. "Even the Imams -- religious leaders -- whose teachings we use now -- admitted that their views were not the absolute truth.

    "Why should we, people living 14 centuries later, say that their teachings are absolute and cannot be interpreted contextually," she asked.

    She admitted that the draft was still only at the proposal stage and had not yet been formalized as a bill, and was thus open to amendment following discourse and discussion.

    "Understanding religious teachings should be done critically and rationally," she said. "Differences in viewpoints should not be a problem." However, the day's discussion ended by concluding that the reform-minded white paper had indeed confused the public, and that a larger and more comprehensive forum involving ulemas was required before any formal decision could be made.

    When all was said and one, the only discourse that took place in reality during the forum revolved around who is eligible to question Islamic law.

     Health & education

    Experts warn of abuse of free education policy

    Jakarta Post - May 20, 2005

    Jakarta -- The government's plan to provide free education for elementary and secondary school students must be a long-term policy and not a short-term move to counter political pressure, activists say.

    "The long-awaited decision to introduce compulsory free education must not merely be based on short-term considerations to ease the pressure after the recent fuel price increases," activist Bambang Widjojanto said earlier this week.

    Earlier, the Ministry of National Education agreed with House of Representatives Commission X for education to allocate Rp 11.13 billion (US$1.19 million) annually to provide free compulsory education beginning with the next school year.

    The money will be given to elementary and junior high schools nationwide in the form of block grants, whose amount will depend on the number of students at each school.

    Minister of National Education Bambang Sudibyo said that since it was impossible for the government to cover the expenses of all students, the program would only include poor students. However, other students will benefit from limitations placed on the number and amount of fees schools will be allowed to charge.

    The plan, however, has yet to be approved by the House's budgetary committee.

    Bambang said guaranteeing access to basic education for all children still needed to be passed into law in order for it to have a binding effect on the government, thereby assuring the long-term nature of the policy.

    "Grants given to schools should not merely cover their overhead costs, but should be part of a larger design to develop the education sector," he said. "The government must give priority to schools with problems regarding both infrastructure and quality." Activists have raised concern over the possibility of abuse if the money is given to schools in the form of block grants.

    Last month, members of the Jakarta City Council's public welfare commission found during a visit to junior high school SMP 232 that part of a grant extended to the school by the city administration, which was meant to assist 798 students from poor families, had been used to buy furniture, a television set and an air conditioner for the principal's office, as well as a photocopier.

    Bambang said this case showed the block grant approach was prone to corruption and thus stricter supervision was needed. "We could empower a local micro-education movement involving teachers to help supervise the use of the funds," he said, mentioning the example of college students in Ujung Pandang monitoring corruption in their university and working with local radio stations to build up a local awareness of the problem.

    Anticorruption activist Teten Masduki said granting direct scholarships or education insurance to students would be safer and more effective.

    "If channeling the funds continues to depend on the bureaucracy, there will still be the potential for leakage. Giving the money directly to students can minimize this," he said. Teten added that through the direct disbursement of scholarships or insurance, students would have the freedom to choose which school they wanted to attend.

    The director of the Institute for Educational Reform at Paramadina University, Hutomo Dananjaya, said selective criteria should be established before giving the grants to schools. However, he said the plan was a good start since 65 percent of the country's population had at best an elementary school education.

    Because there are so many students that would be covered by the program, the government, if necessary, should issue bonds as a source of funding, he said. "No one will object if the government issues bonds for education," Hutomo said. "It has been done to bail out the banking sector, so why not education?"

     Islam/religion

    Indonesian Muslims protest US desecration of Koran

    Xinhua News - May 23, 2005 Jakarta -- Thousands of Indonesian Muslims staged rally outside the US embassy in Jakarta on Sunday, condemning the alleged desecration of the Muslim holy book Koran by American soldiers at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

    The protesters from 31 Islamic organizations demanded the United States to stop humiliating Muslims, close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and Abu Graip prison in Iraq and order the United States and its allies to leave Iraq, Afghanistan and other Islami ccountries.

    "We will persistently give pressures to the government of the United States to stop humiliation and desecration of Koran as well as to the Muslims," said Syaefullah, head of a hardline Muslim organization in Indonesia.

    The rally was participated by the Indonesian Ulemas Council, Indonesia's biggest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama, Muslim organization Muhammaddiyah and scores of political parties.

    Newsweek magazine recently reported that investigators probing abuses at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp found interrogators had placed the Koran on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet.

    Muslims consider the Koran as the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence.

    The magazine has since retracted the report, which sparked three days of violent anti-US protests in Afghanistan. Enditem

    The rise of Islamic protestantism in Indonesia

    Jakarta Post - May 18, 2005

    Meidyatama Suryodiningrat -- This goes beyond a simple case of an "oddball" preacher in Malang leading prayers in Arabic and Bahasa Indonesia. The controversy over the preacher from East Java performing prayers in two languages is, unwittingly, part of the growing enlightenment that rejects the traditional dogma of state-sponsored religion.

    It is not a challenge toward religion per say, but protestantism in response to the hegemony of organized religion in Indonesia and the state's monopoly over religious righteousness. For over three decades the state ruled by proxy over the masses through state institutions and conservative clerics whose words and fatwa defined what was or what was not considered virtuous. Dissenters were branded heretic.

    Thirty years of totalitarianism reduced people's capacity to think, producing a society in love with its own enslavement. If everything was so perfectly defined, what need is there for reason? Reformasi is still wanting in its goal of creating a just, democratic society, but at the very least it provides a window for free thought.

    This window has brought about revisionism in all areas of life once decreed sacrosanct. Authority over religion is quietly raging a battle that is becoming 'bloodier' by the day.

    A group of young "liberal" Islamic thinkers like Ulil Abshar Abdala were condemned to death, by fatwa, for challenging traditional conservatism.

    A draft Islamic Code of Law which included articles redressing the rights of women was struck down under pressure from theocons and fear of "inciting public unrest".

    Most recently, Muhammad Yusman Roy of the Islamic boarding school Pondok I'tikaf Jama'ah Ngaji Lelaku was arrested for leading prayers in Arabic and Indonesian.

    After the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an edict saying prayers can only be conducted in Arabic, Roy had thus allegedly violated Article 156 (a) of the Criminal Code on despoiling an organized religion. The crime carries a maximum punishment of five years imprisonment.

    Strangely, the exclusive use of Arabic in Islamic liturgy has been a matter of debate for centuries.

    Over a millennium ago two acclaimed Islamic philosophers -- Abu Hanifah (a Persian) and Syafi'i (an Arab) -- were already arguing this very point. The latter, not surprisingly, contending Arabic was the sole permissible language in prayers.

    In the 1930s, Turkish nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal (Kemal Ataturk) instructed that the adzan -- the call to prayer -- be read in Turkish.

    Repeated cases in Indonesia have also shown, there is an inability to differentiate between Islam and Arabic tradition.

    The "grand old man of the republic", Haji Agus Salim, demanded the shroud between men and women participants in a 1927 Islamic youth conference in Yogyakarta be removed saying the separation of the sexes in such a manner was not an Islamic, but rather an Arab tradition.

    Cleric Roy himself before he was arrested was not contesting the core tenets of Islam -- the belief in one God and fate, the Prophet Muhammad, shalat, and faith in the hereafter. His purpose seemed simply to make religious text more accessible. To engage in a more "tender" dialog with God.

    Under political duress Roy has apologized but remains adamant about continuing his prayers in the two languages, albeit only with his immediate family.

    Even the most conservative clerics would agree that Islam is a religion that encourages scientific and cognitive thought. Hence it is ironic that militancy, not rationale and debate, prevails.

    As Salim has shown, debate was part of the healthy Indonesian Islamic culture in the pre-New Order days. In the 1950s there were articles on the opposing views of Persis and Muhammadiyah (two prominent Islamic organizations) on religious issues.

    The analogy of Martin Luther and his excommunication by Pope Leo X in the 16th Century may be offensive to some Muslims, but the historical parallel is worth studying.

    No one here is hammering a list of demands on a church door. Nevertheless the social environment which permits free and rational thought is challenging the parochialism of organized religion. It is neither an organized nor a conscious movement. It is trend which stems naturally from humanity's desire to find sequential truth based on reason, not doctrine.

    It is no threat to religion, especially Islam. It is however intimidating to those who exploit religion as a means of mind control.

    Maybe Muslims in this country are undergoing their own initial phase of religious enlightenment and reformation. A welcome end result would be a rational approach to religion which would eliminate religion from politics -- An end to clerics who forget that in Islam there is no such thing as a priesthood which has structural control over a congregation; an end to religious claims that women cannot become leaders; an end to politicians who can claim probity because they show themselves to be pious by using Islamic (Arabic) symbolism.

    "Without doubt there can be no faith, for it only leads to blind faith."

     Armed forces/defense

    Yudhoyono approves additional military funding

    Jakarta Post - May 19, 2005

    Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta -- President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono approved on Wednesday a proposal for an increase in the country's military spending this year despite earlier opposition amid concern over the widening state budget deficit.

    Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono said the President had agreed to provide an additional Rp 1.7 trillion (US$180 million) for military spending from the current budget allocation of Rp 21.6 trillion.

    "An increase in military spending is a must. The military (TNI) needs support from all parties to improve its equipment and arms in order to address future external threats," said Juwono after a limited Cabinet meeting to discuss funding for the defense sector.

    Juwono, however, said the final decision would be made during the upcoming state budget revision meeting with the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

    The additional funds approved by the President, however, are lower than the initial Rp 5 trillion demanded by the Ministry of Defense, as Minister of Finance Jusuf Anwar had repeatedly rejected the proposal due to limited capacity of the state budget.

    Should the new military spending budget be approved by the House, Juwono said it would help cover the cost of repairing and modernizing TNI equipment, which was either not functioning or too old.

    "Considering the limited funds in the state budget, I think the allocation is just enough for this year. It is important for us is to improve accountability and transparency in the use of the funds in order to gain maximum results," he said.

    Juwono said that the TNI was unlikely to purchase new arms in the next two years, but might start expanding its equipment purchases again in 2007 when the country's economy was stronger.

    Next year, Indonesia is expected to increase its military spending by Rp 24 trillion.

    Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, needs a strong military force not only to address threats at home, such as separatist movements, but also to protect its borders.

    The defense budget of the world's fourth most populous country is considered very low, even compared to smaller neighboring countries, such as Thailand and Malaysia.

    The TNI's military equipment has been steadily deteriorating as a result of the 13-year arms embargo imposed by the United States, due to gross human rights violations in East Timor.

    The condition was exacerbated further by the Asian financial crisis in late 1997 which ravaged the Indonesian economy.

    Ex-Aceh commanders get key posts

    Jakarta Post - May 18, 2005

    Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta -- Two former military operations chiefs in Aceh received strategic posts in the latest military reshuffle, which affected several other high-ranking officers overseeing security in other provinces.

    Maj. Gen. George Toisutta and Maj. Gen. Bambang Darmono have been assigned respectively to head the Trikora Military Command in Papua and the Army's Infantry Command in Bandung, West Java.

    The two generals were Aceh military commanders when the government imposed a one-year martial law in May 19, 2003.

    Bambang, who led the military offensive in troubled Aceh for six months before being replaced by George, was previously the Indonesian Military (TNI) chief's assistant for social and welfare affairs. Before being posted to Aceh, George was in charge of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad)'s first division based in Cilodong, West Java.

    Bambang and George are 1974 graduates of the Armed Forces Academy.

    Two former heads of East Timor's Wiradharma Military Command were promoted in the reshuffle. Brig. Gen. FX Suhartono Suratman and Brig. Gen. A. Nur Muis were both acquitted of gross human rights abuses in East Timor when it voted to break away from Indonesia in 1999.

    Suratman, the current acting TNI spokesman, will serve as the TNI chief's expert staff on communications and social affairs. He will be promoted to a two-star general. The new TNI spokesman will be Maj. Gen. Kohirin Suganda, who was previously the coordinator of the TNI chief's expert staff.

    Nur Muis has been appointed the new chief of the Jakarta Military garrison.

    The outgoing head of the Trikora Military Command, Maj. Gen. Nurdin Zainal, was assigned as the intelligence assistant to the TNI chief of general affairs, Vice Marshall Wartoyo. Nurdin replaces Maj. Gen. Dadi Sutanto, who was promoted to the Ministry of Defense's director-general of defense strategy.

    TNI information officer Col. A. Yani Basuki said on Tuesday 13 high-ranking military officers were promoted in these latest personnel moves.

    The reshuffle affected a total of 57 military officers, including 31 who served at TNI Headquarters, 18 officers at Army Headquarters and six at Navy Headquarters.

    "It is a routine duty rotation of military officers," Yani told The Jakarta Post.

    The reshuffle, which was approved by TNI chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, also affected the head of East Java's Brawijaya Military Command, Maj. Gen. Achmad Djunaidi Sikki, and the head of Sulawesi's Wirabuana Military Command, Maj. Gen. Suprapto.

    Achmad, who will soon reach retirement age, will be replaced by Maj. Gen. Syamsul Mapareppa and will take up a non-portfolio desk at TNI Headquarters.

    Mapareppa currently heads the Army's Territorial Command. He will be replaced in this position by Suprapto. Maj. Gen. Arief B.S., a former infantry commander, will take over from Suprapto as head of the Wirabuana Military Command.

    The latest reshuffle also affects the Navy's Eastern Fleet chief, Rear Adm. Susialisman, who has been named to head the Navy's Command School. Rear Adm. Didi Heru Purnomo will fill Susialisman's current post.

     Business & investment

    Local wood industry collapses

    Jakarta Post - May 23, 2005

    Jakarta -- About two-thirds of the nation's wood-based industry has collapsed, with a "high cost economy" and aging machinery making them uncompetitive against more efficient economies such as China and Malaysia, said Indonesian Forestry Society (MPI).

    "About 60 percent of the 115 wood-based manufacturers have collapsed. If there is no action in the next six months to improve the situation, more will follow suit," MPI chairman Sudrajat DP told Antara on Saturday.

    He said China and Malaysia have managed to establish more efficient industries, thus producing cheaper products. Meanwhile, Indonesian producers had to bear numerous kinds of fees, both legal and illegal, he said.

    "Such fees comprise about 35 percent of total production costs," he said, adding that Indonesian end-product prices become more expensive due to the inefficient and aging machinery, which consequently need more operational costs.

    Moreover, local wood-based manufactures were stuck in producing only plywood, while Malaysia and China have focus on down-stream industries producing furniture.

    Sudrajat suggested that the government could help by assisting the industry to restructure their machinery and expand the export market. The government should also solve the illegal logging problem, he said. As the government intensified measures against illegal logging, raw materials are now in short supply.

    The Ministry of Forestry has estimated that illegal trade in forestry products from Indonesia to China alone, especially raw timber, over the past couple of years has reached some 9 million cubic meters valued at Rp 18 trillion (US$1.86 billion).

    Sudrajat explained that after years of misconduct, it was hard for manufacturers to determine the legal status of forest products. Consequently, many manufacturers were trapped into acquiring illegal products and could not use them, as the authorities forbid them to do so, he said.

    IMF hails Indonesian economy, warns about inflation

    Jakarta Post - May 20, 2005

    Riyadi Suparno, Jakarta -- After more than a week of assessment, the International Monetary Fund has praised Indonesia's overall economic performance and the policy directions pursued by the government and the central bank, but has sounded warnings over a number of challenges, especially the likely increase in inflation this year.

    IMF's Asia & Pacific division chief Odd Per Brekk, who led the IMF assessment team under the terms of the post program monitoring (PPM) arrangement, said on Thursday that he saw positive developments in the country, especially the return of foreign investment, which would in turn help drive economic growth.

    He described the 6.35 percent year-on-year growth in gross domestic product (GDP) recorded in the first quarter of this year as "better quality growth" that was supported not only by high consumption but also by improving investment and exports.

    "But you also see some signs that the work has not finished," Brekk said. "Therefore, the policy response from the government must continue to be sound." The most obvious challenge, according to Brekk, would be inflation, which again reared its ugly head in this year's first quarter, and which as of April stood at a year-on-year rate of 8.12 percent. This was simply because of the market's anticipation of fuel price increases and the fact that these turned out to be higher than expected.

    The IMF's senior resident representative to Indonesia, Stephen Schwartz, said the IMF shared most analysts projections that inflation would likely surpass the government's target of 7 percent this year. Nevertheless, it would not rise dramatically, but would rather be in the range of between 7 percent and 8 percent.

    Aside from inflation, the IMF also warned about continued volatility of the rupiah in the money markets. Brekk suspected that the rupiah's decline to its current level of around Rp 9,400 to the dollar was driven both by overseas and domestic factors. The main overseas factor was the increase in the US interest rates, while many domestic factors were involved. But the most important was rising liquidity.

    Therefore, Brekk said the IMF welcomed the move by Bank Indonesia to increase its benchmark one-month SBI interest rate to 7.9 percent per annum, as well as the increase in the frequency of SBI auctions from bi-weekly to weekly so as to absorb excess money. In the long run, however, BI would have to pursue lower interest rates in a bid to drive economic growth and create employment.

    He also said that the IMF supported BI's move to shift its focus on monetary policy from quantity (base-money) targeting to interest rate targeting as an intermediate step toward inflation targeting. In the longer term, BI should set the inflation target on a par with its major trading partner, i.e., around 3 percent per annum.

    In the financial sector, the IMF also noted that there was still work to be done in the area of banking supervision. The emergence of the banking scandal in Bank Mandiri should serve as a reminder that restructuring of the banking sector was not yet complete.

    Schwartz, however, recognized that Bank Indonesia's banking supervision had improved a lot, but said it needed to be further strengthened to reduce risks in the banking industry.

    "The next step would be for Bank Indonesia to move toward what they call risk-based supervision," Schwartz said, describing this as "a more common sense approach" in assessing risks in the banking system.

     Opinion & analysis

    Ex-strongman Soeharto, still at large and larger than life

    Jakarta Post - May 23, 2005

    Wimar Witoelar, Jakarta -- Time stood still for a moment on the morning of May 21, 1998. Millions of hearts skipped a beat upon hearing the announcement on television. President Soeharto was stepping down from power. Disbelief was followed by amazement as pictures appeared of a hastily conducted ceremony at Merdeka Palace. A tired-looking Soeharto stepped aside in favor of a tense-looking B.J. Habibie. Many felt the fall was coming, but one is never prepared for such an historical moment.

    Ever since March 11, 1966, Soeharto had been a constant in Indonesian nationhood. Wherever the political winds blew, Soeharto was unquestionably the dominant factor in Indonesia. People were either for him or against him. A vast majority supported him in 1966. Soeharto's "New Order" met with enthusiastic public acclaim. But the democratic hopes were dashed as the masses got restless in 1969, 1974, 1978, 1989. Finally, expressions of disenchantment escalated from 1996 to 1998 and triggered the downfall.

    Even when his corruption and human rights atrocities were uncovered, Soeharto remained a formidable figure. Four presidents, including the current one, were unable to bring him to justice. His family and cronies remain free, prosperous and impervious to public recrimination. A few criminals close to Soeharto did spend time in prison, but they got soft treatment. Soeharto money still floats around, his investments thrive and his interests lurk behind political and commercial interests.

    He has always maintained a quiet style featuring personal restraint and discipline. This low-key personal approach coupled with great power enabled unimpeded political navigation to secure his position. He showed patience and grace under pressure. Soeharto never showed panic, morphing from public enemy to elder statesman without leaving his home. Foreign investors admired him and even now associate him with stability and prosperity. One cannot blame international investors because the mistreatment of his nation was swept under the rug.

    Soeharto brought prosperity to the people, but its distribution was skewed. Loyalists were handsomely rewarded; common people were ignored and dissenters disappeared without a trace. Dozens of expensive homes in Jakarta hint at the wealth accumulated by former Cabinet ministers who legitimized his corrupt schemes. His sons took most of the blame but low-profile ministers amassed assets like luxury houses for their sons, daughters and in-laws. The second generation of the Soeharto profiteers now have become respectable businesspeople. Some have even become public officials.

    Students and activists flail wildly against the Soeharto crimes, while smooth lawyers provide Teflon screens of immunity to the scions of the New Order. The presence of Rolls-Royces, Jaguars, Ferraris and Cadillacs on the congested streets of Jakarta today indicate the money Soeharto generates for lawyers, accountants and generally useful people serving his family and cronies.

    This is more or less the legacy of the Soeharto presidency now, seven years after his fall. Seven years into his term of power, the picture was vastly different. In 1973, the hugely successful reconstruction of Indonesia's political and economic landscape received a bonus in the historic oil price increase achieved by OPEC. By 1980, Jakarta had caught up with Manila, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur as cosmopolitan capitals, resplendent with five-star hotels, air-conditioned office buildings and a glittery nightlife.

    To the New Order's credit, improvements also followed in the social sphere. They were never proportionate to the fortune bestowed on the elite, but development indices did not show this. Rice self-sufficiency, exports, literacy rates, infrastructure and education all received applause from the United Nations, the World Bank and a number of multinational institutions.

    The time span of the New Order is matched in recent history only by Cuba's Fidel Castro. Soeharto survived -- politically -- American Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Sr. before facing Bill Clinton's strong human rights lens at the end of the New Order. Countless Prime Ministers and two Popes knew him as President and generations of Cabinet ministers succeeded each other for 32 years. Children returning home after spending time in the US would ask why there were so many presidents in America, but only two in Indonesia.

    Even now, with the sixth President of Indonesia in office, only two really count in historical terms, Sukarno and Soeharto. They were the truly powerful ones, with significant differences. While Sukarno invited breathless emotions in the range of love and hate, Soeharto was neither massively adored nor loathed. He was generally respected for his effectiveness, but quietly resented for his suffocating control. Statistics generally protect Soeharto as his misdeeds have not been formally proven. His crimes are horrendous and his victims stretch out from Tanjung Priok to East Timor, from the Petrus killings (mysterious killings) to the May riots. And yet, formal observers do not always portray him as a world-class enemy of human dignity and civil rights.

    From a personal perspective, Soeharto appeared in 1966 to rescue the nation from ruin as Communists were presented as a public terror. Sukarnoists defended themselves poorly as Sukarno allowed himself to be identified with the Communists. Soeharto The Hero, drove his jeep from his home in Menteng to the presidential palace. He still managed to maintain his low-key image when his home burgeoned into blocks of high-security mansions. However, he became isolated as his public appearances were limited to highly controlled situations. He started out with strong support from democratically minded Army generals, and lost power decades later when hardline generals turned the New Order into an arrogant display of absolute power.

    It is difficult to be objective about Soeharto's public record. Power co-opted the bulk of his opposition, while isolating the diehards. Soeharto touched millions of human lives. All Indonesians above the age of 25 have something of Soeharto in them. His presence meant betterment of many lives at the cost of public deprivation. It needs some reflection to reduce Soeharto to simple terms. Without legal power to support their cause, protests become shrill and mercenary, and legal arguments always win out. It will take time to vindicate the public ills that Soeharto has wrought in this country.

    [The writer is a political commentator.]

    Commentary - Aceh's lingering aches

    Straits Times - May 21, 2005

    Anthony Paul -- At first glance, the latest news from Aceh seems promising: On Wednesday, Jakarta lifted the state of emergency declared a year ago, when the army stepped up its campaign against militant separatists. Peace talks between the government and GAM, the separatist movement, will continue. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told journalists: 'Aceh will revert to normalcy.'

    Unlikely. As a new history of Aceh reminds us, its demand for a separate existence has very deep roots.

    In An Indonesian Frontier: Acehnese And Other Histories Of Sumatra (Singapore University Press, 2005), Singapore-based historian Anthony Reid gives five centuries of reasons why the Aceh separatists' 'simple idea' -- that Aceh's experience within Indonesia has demeaned rather than fulfilled Aceh's historical role -- has spread 'like wildfire' throughout north-western Sumatra.

    Says Mr Reid: 'It seems extremely unlikely that this (passion) will evaporate whatever the external conditions.'

    For centuries, Acehnese developed a society more cosmopolitan and self-confident than much of the rest of the archipelago. Founded around 1500 by Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah, the Aceh sultanate united a wealthy Muslim merchant community that succeeded for many decades in driving their intruding Christian Portuguese business rivals out of northern Sumatra.

    In the 16th century, spice dominated the global economy much as oil does today. By the 1550s, Aceh was supplying Europe with about half of its pepper, shipped directly to the Red Sea's Muslim ports. For the next three centuries, Aceh was a fully sovereign state. It sent tribute to the rulers of Turkey and China. With its ports servicing haj pilgrims, the sultanate came to be known as 'the verandah of Mecca'.

    By the early 17th century, when Sultan Iskandar Muda was ruler, Aceh was, notes Mr Reid, 'one of the important powers of Asia'. Its authority stretched as far as what is now Padang in west Sumatra, Asahan in east Sumatra, and Pahang, Johor and Kedah in the Peninsula.

    Later, Aceh declined in spice wealth and military power. But as a cultural centre, it had few regional equals.

    Schools flourished. The upper classes spoke Arabic: Sultans sent correspondence in Arabic to England's Queen Elizabeth and later King James I. From the 17th century, it was the crucible of classical Malay literature.

    In the late 19th century, when the Dutch escalated their efforts to dominate in the East Indies, memories of Aceh's former greatness were still fresh.

    A British resident of Singapore, one William Henry Read, suddenly and briefly took centre stage. Without quite saying so -- Mr Reid is, to a fault, a cautious historian -- the author implies that this curious businessman buccaneer launched what would prove to be 'the most costly of colonial wars in South-east Asia'.

    A Singapore merchant of occasionally dubious practices, Mr Read doubled as the colony's Dutch consul-general.

    As the Dutch escalation loomed, the sultanate had launched a determined effort to find allies. An Acehnese emissary came to Singapore with letters to the French, American, Italian and Spanish consuls pleading for help.

    Learning of this, Mr Read sent an 'alarmist message' to Holland, successively urging a pre-emptive invasion.

    The fighting, which began in 1873, continued intermittently for the next four decades. It led to the deaths of at least 100,000 Acehnese and some 14,000 on the Dutch side.

    Aceh's reputation for resisting intruders continued into the 1940s. Although the Acehnese first welcomed Japanese invaders in 1942, by 1944 they were fighting them too.

    Despite this, when the atomic bomb forced Japan's abrupt surrender the following year, Mr Reid notes that hundreds of Japanese diehards 'chose Aceh to make a stand as the South-east Asian place most certain to resist the return of Allied control'.

    When nationalist leader Sukarno mounted his revolution, Aceh's historical anti-Dutch warriors provided Indonesians with official national heroes and heroines. Aceh helped finance the embattled republican government and paid for two aeroplanes to run the Dutch blockade.

    But the sultanate still kept its distance: Between 1945 and 1949, this was 'the only substantial region the Dutch could not or did not enter'.

    In passages that sometimes read like a mea culpa, historian Reid, a 40-year veteran of Indonesian studies and visits, cautiously confesses that his views on Aceh have changed since he first went to Sumatra in 1967.

    In those days he 'shared the view of most of my Acehnese friends and contacts that this was a part of Indonesia, albeit a restive and troubled part'.

    Visits in 2000 and 2003, after president Suharto's fall in 1999 made it possible for a free press to publicise military atrocities in Aceh, 'obliged me to rethink my assumptions'.

    Contemplating the emergency under way as he wrote his book, author Reid concluded that 'one window of opportunity for resolving a century-long problem of Aceh's place within Indonesia has closed'.

    Perhaps the new President Yudhoyono is in a position to open yet another window? Perhaps. History, alas, is unlikely to be his ally.

    Reigning in the military

    Jakarta Post Editorial - May 16, 2005

    Normalcy is a luxury for most Acehnese. Their province has practically been in a perpetual state of war for as long as most people can remember. War after war has been waged and fought between the Indonesian Military and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), with the civilian population caught squarely in the middle.

    After a series of military operations mounted by Jakarta under various kinds of legal umbrella -- take your pick: military operations area (DOM), martial law or a state of civil emergency -- the government finally decided last week to grant the Acehnese a whiff of freedom -- at least on paper -- when it resolved not to renew the state of civil emergency when it ends this Wednesday.

    This decision will doubtless be viewed as a boon by the Acehnese, who have suffered not only from war but also as a result of the Boxing Day tsunami that wiped out most of the towns and villages along Aceh's western coast. The new approach should also help the Executing Agency for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias, which has been given the huge task of rebuilding Aceh's devastated infrastructure.

    However, the decision not to renew the emergency is far, far from being enough. It must be followed up by real action on the ground. It is pointless just to lift the emergency if the military remains the de facto power in the field, if the military retains all of its combatants in Aceh, and if the military has an undisclosed and unaccounted budget to spend.

    But judging from past experience, and also from the statements emanating from the military, there is faint hope that the lifting of the emergency will bring any real improvement to the lives of the Acehnese or the return of the normalcy enjoyed by their fellow citizens in most other parts of the country.

    Following the ending of the earlier military operations area (DOM) policy, the Indonesian Military (TNI) was supposed to reduce its presence in Aceh. On the contrary, however, it actually strengthened its presence there and even revived the Iskandar Muda territorial military command for Aceh -- justified by the imposition of martial law on the province on May 18, 2003, following the collapse of peace talks between the government and GAM.

    And now, after the government has decided not to renew the emergency, the TNI says that it will not reduce the number of its troops in Aceh. What a contradiction. We can only hope that this TNI statement is meant solely to serve as a bargaining chip to strengthen the government's hand in the current peace talks with GAM. The issue of security arrangements in Aceh has apparently been a sticking point during the current talks. Some even worry that this issue could stall the talks altogether. But we hope the government and GAM will be able to find enough common ground to resolve this issue.

    Whatever the results of the peace talks, we are of the opinion that the military's presence in Aceh must be reduced, simply because there is so much resentment against the military in the province. There are abundant stories, and even jokes, among the Acehnese testifying to the true nature of the Indonesian Military. To restore law and order, the government should entrust the task to the police -- with better preparation, of course, so that they can truly win the trust of the Acehnese.

    Also, the military has been less than transparent as regards the funding of its operations in conflict areas, including Aceh. The military spends vast amounts of money in such areas, while the tales of malfeasance are legion, and yet we rarely see any prosecutions for graft being brought against military officers. Civilian officials may similarly be corrupt, but at least we can prosecute them and send them to jail. The corruption prosecution and jailing of Abdullah Puteh, the governor of Aceh, is a case in point.

    We have all heard news reports that just days after the tsunami, a business group close to the military was asked to plan the reconstruction of the town of Meulaboh in Aceh. Luckily, this news appeared early enough to arouse public concern. However, this does not guarantee that such deals are not at this very moment being sealed in back rooms or will not take place in the future, especially if the military continues to wield power in Aceh. This would, obviously, hamper the reconstruction agency in successfully fulfilling its mandate in the province.

    It is essential for the government to ensure that the reconstruction agency can work independently to ensure that no corruption, collusion, nepotism and, equally importantly, no blackmail occurs in the management of the Aceh rebuilding funds, which are made up mostly of foreign money. Once corruption, or worse blackmail, starts to rear its ugly head, foreign donors will hold on to their money, and this will hurt the Acehnese more than anyone else.

    Nevertheless, we sincerely hope that all of these worries, especially those about the ever-dominant role of the military in Aceh, will turn out to be unwarranted. We hope that the military itself will do its best for the country by facilitating civilian rule in Aceh and the reconstruction agency in carrying out its duty of serving the long-suffering Acehnese.


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