Indonesia's miraculous 'free' democracy

Modern miracles do happen. Ten years ago, as the Asian financial crisis savaged Indonesia's economy, many experts predicted that the country would become unstable, if not splinter. Instead, Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic country, has emerged as a beacon of freedom and democracy for the Muslim world. What happened? And why hasn't the world taken note?

The story is as complex as Indonesia itself. One leading expert on Indonesia, Benedict Anderson, roots Indonesia's nature in its core Javanese culture, particularly the wayang religious tradition. According to Anderson, "In contrast to the great religions of the Near East, the religion of wayang has no prophet, no message, no Bible, no Redeemer."

The endless variety and sharp individuality of its dramatis personae indicate that wayang reflects the variegation of human life as it is felt by the Javanese." In short, Javanese culture helps Indonesia handle the many diverse voices that a new democracy throws up.

There is also a strong Indonesian tradition of resolving disagreements through musyawarah dan mufakat (consultation and consensus). Of course, this tradition has not always prevented violence, most notoriously in the killings that followed the 1966 coup against President Sukarno. And 10 years ago, during the financial crisis, violent anti-Chinese riots erupted again, causing many Chinese to flee the country.

Today, however, many of those Chinese have returned. In a remarkable development, Chinese language and culture, which had been suppressed for decades, is allowed free expression. By contrast, imagine Turkey, a more advanced member state of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, allowing free expression of Kurdish language and culture.

Indonesia's record looks even more remarkable when compared to the United States. Americans explain their country's democratic backsliding by pointing to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But Indonesia was attacked, too, with the bombing in Bali coming little more than a year later on Oct. 12, 2002. Despite this, Indonesia has consolidated its democracy. In 2005, Freedom House declared that Indonesia had moved from "partly free" to "free."

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono deserves great credit for this remarkable success. Under his leadership, the long-standing and painful Aceh conflict was peacefully resolved. Some credit the 2004 tsunami, which killed hundreds of thousands of Acehnese, for this breakthrough. But Sri Lanka was hit equally hard by the tsunami and the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict has worsened.

Today, the biggest threat to Indonesia's democracy comes from America, even though most Americans want Indonesia's democracy to succeed. With modern technology, Indonesian Muslims clearly see the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and America's silence when Israeli aircraft bombed Lebanon in July 2006.

Many senior Americans were puzzled that Turkey, a long-standing NATO ally and a secular state, refused to allow American forces to use Turkey as a base to invade Iraq. If relatively secular Turkish society could be swept by a surge of anti-American sentiment, so, too, can Indonesia society.

Indeed, a major struggle is under way between those who want Indonesia to become more fundamentalist and those who want to preserve the traditionally open and tolerant nature of Javanese culture. Curiously, while many Americans and Europeans want moderate Muslim voices to succeed in Indonesia (and Southeast Asia), they often undermine moderates with policies that are perceived as anti-Islamic.

America's stance on military aid to Indonesia is but one example. For several years, some members of the U.S. Senate have maintained a punitive policy toward Indonesia by cutting off military assistance and curtailing Indonesian military training in the U.S. These punitive policies are self-defeating.

In recent years, the Indonesian military has provided a model for other Third World military forces on how to accept a transition to a full democracy. There are no threats of a coup d'etat, and senior generals, such as Yudhoyono, who studied in American military colleges, returned to Indonesia as convinced democrats.

It is a tragedy that ignorance of how much Indonesia has changed is being allowed to endanger its democratic development — and its role as a beacon of freedom and hope in the Islamic world. It is to be hoped that Barack Obama, should he win America's presidency, will recall the tolerant Indonesia where he grew up, and shape policies toward it accordingly.
Kishore Mahbubani is dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His most recent book is "The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East." © 2008 Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org)


search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20080922a1.html

Golkar n money

Money, money, money. It is indeed shameful and disgusting money seems to be the only factor in determining who will win the Golkar Party chairmanship in Pekanbaru, Riau, this week. Media reports about alleged vote buying have raised many doubts about the credibility of the party leaders. When leaders are elected because of their wealth, and not because of their capability, it is hard to believe they can achieve quality results.

We heard little about comprehensive programs from the candidates — business tycoon Aburizal Bakrie and media baron Surya Paloh are so far the strongest contenders — on what politicians will do to restore the party’s past supremacy in local and national elections.

We wished they could provide detailed programs to the party stakeholders, but we could only gain information about the mighty power of their wealth. It is true that both Aburizal and Surya boasted Golkar would win more votes in local elections and in the 2014 legislative and presidential elections, but they apparently also know congress participants are more interested in how they
can get the highest financial and political benefits from the congress.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla easily won the Golkar leadership in 2004, several weeks after he and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono were sworn in as the country’s new leaders. He defeated then incumbent chairman Akbar Tandjung, because he reportedly poured in huge money to attract Golkar leaders.

When Golkar received fewer-than-expected votes in the April legislative elections, Kalla was largely blamed for the failure.

Soeharto established Golkar as his political machine when he came to power in the 1960s. It was the only major political party around during his tenure, although there were also two smaller parties.

After his fall in 1998, Golkar votes decreased in the 1999 elections. It only secured 120 seats in the House of Representatives that year, 128 seats in 2004 and just 107 seats in 2009.

Soeharto’s youngest son, “Tommy” Soeharto, is also trying his luck in this congress. He has also promised lucrative incentives if he wins the race.

However there is little hope for Tommy to regain family control over the party.

Hopefully the candidates will present their clear and achievable vision and mission to participants of the Golkar congress, which will run from Monday until Thursday.

And we hope the 492 regional and 33 provincial chapters, and Golkar’s 10 wing organizations, which have voting rights in the congress, use a moral conscience — and not their greed for money and power — to elect the party’s new chairman.

As long as money is the most dominant factor in determining the winner of the Golkar leadership race,
there is little hope people can gain more trust in the party. But the behavior of Golkar leaders perhaps also reflects the behavior of our leaders in general. How can we expect democracy to flourish in our country when vote buying remains rampant?



http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/06/all-about-money.html

Padang facing threat of 8.8-magnitude earthquake

While the people of West Sumatra are still shattered by the 7.6-magnitude earthquake that hit the province, killing over 600 residents with hundreds of others still missing, they now face the grim prospect of a stronger earthquake at 8.8 on the Richter scale.

Although the experts have admitted through the print and electronic media that no one nor technology could predict the exact date of the earthquake, they opined that it would be more devastating, like the tsunami of December 2004 which killed more than 200,000 people in several countries.

A geologist from the Indonesian Institute of Science, Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, said pressure had created faultlines around Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, during the series of earthquakes off the Sumatran coast in the last few years.

"The 7.6-magnitude earthquake at 5.16pm on Sept 30 that shook Padang could not be categorised as large-scale. We are talking about the possibility of an earthquake of over 8.0 on the Richter scale, a megacrush accompanied by a tsunami," he said in a statement issued by the institute.

Danny who has been studying the Mentawai fault zone off the coast of Sumatra for 12 years together with fellow researcher Prof Kerry Sieh from the Nanyang Technology University (NTU), Singapore, believed that the pressure built-up could cause a 8.8-magnitude earthquake.

"Theoretically, I can say that this major earthquake may happen tomorrow, the day after, next month or next year. At the latest, it may occur in the next 10 years.

"Personally, I am worried if the earthquake happens in the next few months or next year. But as academicians, we are always given surprises by natural phenomena. It's difficult to say about such happenings," he said.

In 2004, an undersea earthquake at 9.15 on the Richter scale with its epicentre 600km north of Padang, caused a tsunami that swept across parts of countries around the Indian Ocean, with Aceh in Indonesia being the most devastated.

Danny said a 8.8-magnitude would create tsunami waves of four to 10 metres high smashing Padang, which has a population of about 4.4 million and has been shaken by earthquakes and tremors in the last few years.

News of the impending 8.8-magnitude earthquake had also widely spread throughout Jakarta via SMS and Twitter, with the rumour rife about the Indonesian capital with a population of about 12 million also to be hit by an earthquake following last Wednesday's.

However, this was immediately refuted by the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics.



http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/articles/20091005215939/Article/index_html

ICW hopes three interim KPK leaders no `troyan horse`

The Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said it was hoping the three government-appointed acting Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) leaders will not turn out to be a "troyan horse."

"We hope that what appears to be a gift to KPK will not prove to be a means to destroy the antigraft body from within." ICW researcher Febri Diansyah said here Monday.

Diansyah was commenting on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono`s appproval of three candidates to fill vacant executive positions in KPK forwarded by the governement-appointed Team of Five.

The three are Tumpak Hatorangan Panggabean, Mas Ahmad Santosa and Waluyo. They would tempororily fill the positions in KPK left vacant by its chief and two deputy chiefs.

Diansyah also said it was hoped the interim KPK leaders would not become "circus lions" who were unable to take resolute actions against corrupters.

"And the only way for them to prove to the public they are not such uneffective KPK leaders is to work hard since the beginning," he said.

Their lithmus test would be the Bank Century case at three levels - actors in policy-making, supervision by Bank Indonesia (BI), and field operators, he said.

Anther test would be the case of "SD" (a senior police officer alleged to have misused his authority to force Bank Century to return the funds of a big-time depositor).

Also, Diansyaj said, the appointmnent of the three acting KPKl leaders should not make the president forget the issue of criminilization of the KPK leadershp.

"Therefore, conducting a thorough examination of the police`s decision to declare two KPK deputy chiefs suspects for abuse of authority is a task to be carried out after this," he said.

Another ICW researcher, , Emerson F Yuntho, said the acting KPK leaders should have the courage to reject attempts to criminilize the KPK leadership. "Otherwise, they too may become victims of criminilaztion." he addded.

Yuntho also said the interim KPK leaders should prove heir mettle by uncovering long-dorman cases such as the Bank Century scandal and the illegal BI funds flowd to the House of Representatives as disclosed by Agus Tjondro," he said.

He said if the interim KPK leaders failed to finish the pending cases "the public will doubt their independence." (*)



http://www.antara.co.id/en/news/1254792203/icw-hopes-three-interim-kpk-leaders-no-troyan-horse

Corruption Fighters Rouse Resistance in Indonesia

Indonesia, a country that has long been regarded as one of the world’s most corrupt, has won praise for combating graft in recent years. Leading the charge has been a single powerful government institution — one whose successes have drawn fierce opposition that now threatens its existence.

Armed with tools like warrantless wiretaps, the Corruption Eradication Commission confronted head-on the endemic corruption that remains as a legacy of President Suharto’s 32-year-long kleptocracy. Since it started operating in late 2003, the commission has investigated, prosecuted and achieved a 100-percent conviction rate in 86 cases of bribery and graft related to government procurements and budgets.

Local reporters camp daily outside the commission’s imposing eight-story building here, where high-ranking businessmen, bureaucrats, bankers, governors, diplomats, lawmakers, prosecutors, police officials and other previously untouchable members of Indonesian society have been made to discover a phenomenon new to this country: the perp walk.

One of Indonesia’s most famous rock bands, Slank, even performed outside the building last year to show support. The band took aim at members of Parliament, the institution generally considered the country’s most corrupt, by singing: “Who draws up laws? Draft bills for bucks.”

According to Transparency International, a Berlin-based private organization dedicated to curbing corruption, the modest progress Indonesia has made against corruption in the past half decade has resulted from the commission’s investigations and reforms inside a single ministry, the Ministry of Finance.

But now the nation’s Parliament, police force and attorney general’s office have increasingly been caught in the cross hairs of the anticorruption commission’s investigations, and members of those bodies are trying to undermine the commission, according to commission officials and watchdog groups.

The attacks against the commission grew so intense that Indonesia’s newly re-elected president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, summoned Indonesia’s top law enforcement officials on a recent morning. Sounding sometimes like a marriage counselor, he told them to avoid “friction” through better “communication” and “respect.”

The meeting shone a rare, public spotlight on the particular difficulties of fighting corruption here. At stake, experts say, is the very survival of the anticorruption commission, universally referred to as K.P.K., the initials of its name in Indonesian.

“It’s now a very dangerous time for the K.P.K.,” said Teten Masduki, the secretary general of Transparency International’s chapter in Indonesia. “Whether it’s the police, attorney general’s office or Parliament, there is a systematic agenda to destroy the K.P.K.”

Some critics say that the commission’s powers are too draconian and that defendants receive inadequate protection at a special Corruption Court where they are tried. Even Mr. Yudhoyono, who has made fighting corruption a main theme of his administration, said recently that the commission “seems to be accountable only to God.”

Haryono Umar, one of the commission’s four vice chairmen, said that its investigators were merely following the 2002 law that created it, and that the commission was accountable to Parliament and other government agencies.

“According to the law, corruption is an extraordinary crime, so that’s why it should be handled by extraordinary means,” Mr. Haryono said.

“But because we are handling corruption very aggressively,” he said, “many people are not happy with the K.P.K.” However, he denied that other law enforcement officials were among them.

Likewise, Inspector Gen. Nanan Soekarna, a spokesman for the national police, said, “We have good relations with the K.P.K.”

Current and former commission officials said relations with police officials and prosecutors started off well but grew strained in the past year after corruption investigators began focusing on the police and the attorney general’s office, long considered among the most corrupt institutions here. Last year, a former high-ranking police official was sentenced to two years in prison for misappropriating funds while serving as ambassador to Malaysia.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/world/asia/26indo.html

Disasters in Indonesia

Geographically, Indonesia is located in South East between two Ocean which are Indian and Pacific Ocean. As a tropical country, Indonesia has fertile land with tropical forest on it. However in the last several years, many tropical forest regions have been damage due to the increasing land demand as an effect of demographic growing (The number of Indonesian Population exceeds 220 million in the year of 2000). As a result, environment quality is decreasing thus generates, or at least exacerbated the worse impact of natural disaster.

Indonesia is well known as active tectonic region. It consists of three major active tectonics plates which are Euasia in the north, Indian Ocean-Australia in the south and pacific plate in the east. The plate movements generate subduction type of boundary which takes control on volcanic arc building and produces Sumatera Island, Java Island, Nusa Tenggara and maluku.

Besides island arc building, the subduction processes also generate seismic active belt along the volcanic arc. Fortunately, shallow epicenter earthquakes usually occur in the remote areas with less number of populations. However in some cases major earthquake stroke dense populated region such as Bengkulu, Liwa, bali and Nusa Tenggara (Flores Island). Another type of natural hazards are generated by the tectonic activities are Volcanic Eruption and Tsunami. Some active transforms faults are well known as earthquake generator are The Great Sumatra Fault (Sumatra Island), Palu-Koro (Central Sulawesi/Celebes) Fault and Sorong Fault (Papua Island)

Indonesia consists of more than 500 young volcanoes including 128 active volcanoes. It is representing 15 % of the active volcanoes in the world. The most active volcano in Indonesia is Merapi which is situated 20 kilometers to the north of Yogyakarta. This volcano has been observed continuously by means of telemetric equipment as well as field investigation. Thus, volcanic eruption disasters can be mitigated very well. Many others have also observed quite well in order to minimize volcanic eruption impact.



Other natural disasters which are generated by or exacerbated by human activities are floods, landslides, drought, land/forest fire. Those are believed as an impact of land or environmental degradation. In the monsoon, Indonesia is threatened by flood and/or landslides which caused loss of human life and property. On the other hand in the dry season, we are facing drought and land/forest fire as well as urban and building fire. Coping with those disasters Indonesian Government was launching a National Movement for Environment Rehabilitation Policy by conducting land rehabilitation and forestation. It was launched by H.E President of the Republic of Indonesia on January 21st 2004 in Gunung Kidul District where is known as mountainous infertile region which is administratively under Yogyakarta Province in Java Island.

Drought is another serious problem faces in the dry season between April and September. Government assisted to have priceless rice and other livestock. This condition also effects on hydro power supply due to significantly lower of water in many reservoir and forest fire. Those types of disasters are considered to be generated by environmental degradation due to deforestation.

Besides natural disaster, Indonesia is also facing man-made type of disaster. The nation of Indonesia is composed of multi ethnics, tribes and religions. This condition is vulnerable to the social conflict which is usually followed by setting fire and demolition of building or settlement.

Major Disaster in Indonesia in the year 2004

Floods and landslides were predominantly Indonesia's natural disasters in 2004. The global climate changes and regional climate condition were most likely influenced on those natural disasters. Human activities are also exacerbated the disaster. The regional integrated climate monitoring by means of climate data and information exchange will be very useful.

Sunday morning 26th of December 2004, at 07.58 local time, a huge earthquake by magnitude 6.8 Richter scale (body wave) or 8.1 Richter scale (magnitude moment) hit Aceh and its surrounding. The Shock can be felt in a very wide spread from Banda Aceh to Medan. The most worst impact of earthquake it self was Banda Aceh and Meulaboh where the intensity of the earthquake exceeds VII - VIII MMI (Modified Marcalli Intensity). Many buildings collapsed, few minutes after the shock tsunami wave swept collapsed building material and everything on the ground away. In some places tsunami wave exceeds more than 5 meter. The impacts devastated more than 500 km long of shore line from South Aceh - West Aceh - Banda Aceh and North Aceh where the length is about 500 km. The tsunami generated by Earthquake has also hit Nias Island (one of the district of North Sumatra Province). The propagation of tsunami waves reached the east coast of Africa. Total Loss of live exceeds 150,000 for the whole impacted area.

Due to the widely impact of disaster, Indonesian Government declared National State of Disaster Emergency. Thus, the emergency relief operations have been taken. The operation is not only done by government but also participated by private sector and communities either local, National or international. The attention of National and international communities are very surprisingly. The emergency relief assistance came very fast to Indonesia. Due to very wide spread of disaster impact and collapse of government System in the province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam the operation faces many obstacles. However, continuously efforts by all participants in the operation have emerged a new hope that the disaster can be handled and the future plan of rehabilitation and reconstruction are on going.

The impact recorded in the National Operation Center in BAKORNAS PBP Jakarta was Predicted more than 94.000 people died, 70.000 missing and 500.000 displaced and lives in the temporary Shelters. In the future we hope that Indian oman where known as an earthquake and tsunami prone area can be equipped by integrated tsunami early warning system which can give a tsunami warning to the people living in along the coast from Southern Cost of Indonesia to Malaysia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. It wiII reduce tshnami disaster risk of the people living there.

Indonesia ill-prepared for disaster: experts

Indonesia remains ill-prepared to deal with major disasters, despite having experienced one calamity after another in recent years, officials and experts say.


The country was again tested on 2 September, when a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the heavily populated island of Java, leaving 80 people dead and at least 47 missing.

The quake also displaced 186,637 people and damaged about 150,000 houses and other buildings, according to the National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB) on 10 September.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is vulnerable to earthquakes and volcanic activity because tectonic plates meet there.

More than 170,000 people were killed in Indonesia by the December 2004 Asian tsunami, while in 2006, over 3,000 people perished after an earthquake near Yogyakarta city in Java.

Quick response needed

Recognizing the need for improved response systems, the Indonesian parliament passed a bill on disaster management in 2007, paving the way for the creation of the BNPB.

The BNPB, which was set up last year, is tasked with preventing disasters, coordinating relief efforts and overseeing post-disaster reconstruction.

The law also calls for a Regional Disaster Management Agency in each of Indonesia's 32 provinces. But so far, only 18 provinces have set up such bodies, BNPB spokesman Priyadi Kardono told IRIN.

"Even in those 18 provinces, the agencies are not necessarily 100 percent functional," Kardono said.

"Money is the problem. New agencies require new rules, new staff and it takes a lot of money," he said.

Kardono said the lack of resources and coordination was highlighted after the 2 September earthquake.

Aid was slow to reach the survivors because local administrations did not have enough manpower to distribute it, he said.

"The amount of aid is adequate, but distribution was uneven because of limited resources, including people and transport," Kardono said.

This month's powerful earthquake struck near the Indonesian island of Java. The epicentre (marked in red) was offshore, about 200 km south of the capital Jakarta

Early warning systems.

Last November, Indonesia launched a tsunami warning system designed to protect coastal residents.

Officials said the complex system of sensors - comprising seismometers, GPS instruments, tide gauges and buoys, as well as ocean bottom pressure sensors - and satellite communications would be ready by 2010.

But Danny Hilman, a tsunami expert at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, said the system was still rudimentary. Of three deep-sea tsunami warning buoys set up after 2004, two were damaged, he said.

"In terms of equipment, so far only seismic sensors are working. The system is still in its very simple form," he said.

Hilman also said very little geological research had been conducted to determine areas prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

"There's still very little knowledge on earthquake sources, except for Sumatra [the country's largest island]," Hilman said. "The identification of earthquake sources is a pre-condition for an early warning system.

"Should there be a tsunami next week, the casualties would still be high," he warned.

Communication problems

Fauzi, head of the earthquake centre at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, said his office issued a tsunami warning four minutes after the 2 September earthquake.

"We issued the warning. The question is how to disseminate information to the public and whether the local governments are prepared," said Fauzi.

BNPB's Kardono said the government was negotiating with a South Korean company to install a warning system whereby earthquake information received by the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency would be relayed to government offices, mosques and cellular base stations, which would then transmit the message to millions of mobile-phone users.

The system is expected to be in place by the end of this year, Kardono said.

Jakarta largely protected

The 2 September quake was felt strongly in Jakarta, sending people running from their homes and office towers in panic.

But geologists say the country's largest city is largely protected because it does not sit on a geological faultline.

Hilman said most high-rise buildings in Jakarta were designed to be able to withstand earthquakes measuring up to level eight on the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale - but the bar should be set higher.

The 2 September quake was felt in Jakarta at four on the MMI scale.

A 7.5 magnitude quake in the Java Sea on 8 August 2007 was felt strongly in Jakarta and caused some damage, but no casualties.

"The current buildings were built under the 2002 building and construction law, but the 2007 earthquake showed that we need a stronger regulation on buildings," he said.




http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/09/11/regional/regional_30112034.php