The Curious Case of Robert James McNeice

What are we to make of the curious case of Australian Robert James McNeice, who remains in a Jakarta prison 16 months after his arrest - ostensibly at the request of the Australian Federal Police - for allegedly embezzling Au$270,000 from one of Australia's wealthiest families?
I first met Robert in post-tsunami Aceh where he was trying to get a coffee export business off the ground. In May or June of 2008, an acquaintance with a ‘security’ background here called out of the blue to ask if I knew where Robert was because Interpol had a warrant for his arrest: I’ve no way of knowing if Interpol was involved and had not heard from him in months.
McNeice was picked up by Indonesian police in Aceh in August 2008. A short time later he was transported to Jakarta where he remains behind bars to this day.
The few media reports about the case say Australian authorities wanted him extradited to face charges back home. There's contradictory testimony about whether the extradition request was thrown out of South Jakarta court last year - which might remove grounds for detention as the 43-year-old is not accused of committing a criminal offense in Indonesia - but here we are heading into 2010 and McNeice's case has yet to be resolved.
Surely it has nothing to do with the shadow cast by the alleged victim of his embezzlement, right? I mean, it's not like "Aussie" John Symond, whose company Aussie Home Loans revolutionized the business of lending in Oz and made himself an enormously wealthy man in the process, is going to hold a grudge. The story goes that Symond's nephew John introduced McNeice to the 'ol man. From what I gather, he is accused of embezzling large sums of money from both men to support a fictitious watch-buying spree in the States: McNeice was part owner of a Sydney watch shop at the time.
Robert popped up in Aceh at some point after Dec. 2004 tsunami claiming to be a coffee wholesaler who wanted to export the province's highland Arabica under an Aceh Coffee Company brand. He told me he'd built up a chain of coffee shops in his native New Zealand that he'd recently sold off, and that he planned to invest in Aceh coffee.
Over successive casual meetings he described how he was successfully linking small highland plantation holders together in cooperatives, enforcing 'no-pesticide' standards as a first step to securing the valued international 'organic' label, while building a resort-style getaway in the hills of Bener Meriah. I recall some folks actually visited his 'resort' and came back impressed by the charms of cool mountain life.

For sure he'd got to the point of producing product: many expiates working in Aceh bought Aceh Coffee Co product in its distinctive silver package. It was pricy but good. Later, when I moved to Jakarta we'd meet occasionally for drinks and he'd always cough up a gratis 1 kg bag. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and yet... there was always something a little odd about the whole venture. Never managed to pin it down, but it just struck me as a really dodgy venture and that he was not to be trusted.
In the only detailed interview circulating (http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/news/3063463/Outcry-over-Kiwis-lengthy-Jakarta-jailing), McNeice says he refused consular help from both the Aussies and Kiwis (he holds dual citizenship) and decided to forego a lawyer until recently. Like everything associated with him, there’s the smell of truth amidst the turd.
He's certainly no cause celebre in Oz. He’s not become a media darling like Schapelle Corby - the curvy Aussie drug-smuggler busted in Bali a few years back and sentenced to 20-years in prison. In fact, the normally vociferous Jakarta-based Aussie press pack have been strangely silent about the case. Odd, given the Australian press' appetite for this kinda thing: evil Indonesia justice system/'injustice' experienced by ordinary 'mate'/$400 million self-made man hoodwinked by con artist/ etc. I reckon the story writes itself, no...?

The Ol’ Croc is Dead; What Happens Now?

Former Indonesian President Suharto died Sunday, January 27, at 1310 local time after several weeks in and out of consciousness in a Jakarta hospital.
Rumours have been flying since he was hospitalized January 4 about the various medical and spiritual interventions being made: the kids will keep him alive at all costs; he's lucid and talking to visitors; he's a drooling brain-dead; he’s critical and about to die; he's already dead (multiple times) but it's being kept hush-hush because it's bad Mojo to die on this day in the Javanese calendar; his brain has been removed and placed in stasis for possible transplant into a host organism (actually I made that last one up).
It’s kinda hard to read the street mood right now because few will speak ill of the dead until it’s clear they're not going to come back and ruin the crops, infest the house with geckos or hypnotize your wife into handing over all her Bank ATM- and VISA cards and PINs to a stranger.
What I can see is that everyone who is supposed to be in my office today is here; the traffic along Jakarta’s main drag Jalan Sudirman is as nasty as ever and, once you sweep away the kilometer-long convoys of official cars speeding for the airport with their Harley-Davidson-driving police outriders, it appears to be business as usual. No wholesale tears or gnashing of teeth here.
The foreign correspondents have dutifully dusted off the obits they’ve had ready for years. I've got some early, amateurish version squirreled away somewhere since his first serious medical crisis back in 2000. There's an inevitable and dull predictability to the tone and content of the writing I've seen thus far. Breaks down like this: Suharto did a lot of good for the country over 32 years, it’s too bad about all those folks butchered on his watch, and the legacy of corruption and waste that bedevils Indonesia to this day.
The obits are quite correct though I would add a slightly less tangible but ultimately more dangerous product of Suharto’s rule: the fostering of a distinctively Javanese brand of Imperial Cynicism which, at its most refined produces the almost pathological lack of public and personal accountability (or shame) that today permeates every sector and strata of Indonesian society regardless of the volume and sophistication of the accompanying ethnic baggage.
Suharto’s legacy, like that of all 'great' leaders is hard to reconcile. It's impossible to lift a country of this size and complexity from the malarial bowels of the Third World (it didn’t qualify as the less colonial adjective ‘developing’ in ’65) to relative global competitiveness in three decades by observing all the niceties, singing Kumbaya around the campfire.
In the real world somebody's flowerbed is going to get trampled; someone's Dad is gonna vanish forever on the walk home from work; someone's family business is going to be stolen away from them and handed to shadowy interests. The question folks here need to consider – and won’t for a several doctoral thesis’ worth of reasons - is whether it was truly necessary and acceptable to butcher 800,000 - 2 million people (including some hard line, virulent Communists who would have certainly putsched back if the shoe was on the other foot) in nine months after the 'coup' in '65 to make it happen? Or see another quarter million, one-in-four, murdered and starved to death in East Timor, and countless tens of thousands mowed down by helicopter gunships and Scorpion tanks in Papua and Aceh.
Does the blood ledger ever balance out? Villages wiped off the map vs national electrical infrastructure built; ethnic Chinese raped and systematically marginalized vs national school and health curriculums created; mass graves filled with the macheted bodies of agricultural coop members in East Java and Bali vs regional stability and generally good relations with the neighbors; a paranoid and corrupt security apparatus that excels only in killing its own citizens vs relative ethnic and religious peace and stability.
Not surprisingly for most Indonesians it’s a matter of one’s personal proximity to the events and access to information about what has gone before that shapes a world view.
As a consequence, the overwhelming numbers of people are prepared to forgive Suharto (and to a lesser extent his security apparatus) their excesses. They’ve begun erecting about him an edifice of artifice and mythology centered around several basic tenets: that development was worth the human costs and that some (Acehnese, Papuans, Timorese, Labor activists, Chinese etc) kinda deserved their fates; that the armed forces from which Suharto (and the current president) emerged remains a central, unifying and stabilizing force which lamentably contains ‘rogue’ elements responsible for decades of excesses; and that ultimately it is understandable (indeed laudable) that the Old Man would dote on his kids (by providing them monopolies on key goods and services for example) but how could he possibly have known (kasihan!) that the little pack of veloci-raptors would be so conscienceless and rapacious?
But the story is by no means done. My gut tells me that part of the deal the country has cut with its conscience is the following: Now that the old man is dead, his shadowy and powerful patronage no longer stretching from the relatively modest Central Jakarta residence where he’s lived since resigning in May 1998 to the National Palace, surely the hounds will be released on his venal children and their playmates? Is it possible that a measure of the justice Suharto eluded might come crashing down on those closest to him? Could it be that the weakened, prevaricating current President will finally hit stride, securing himself a second term in 2009 on the back of a widely popular crackdown on Suharto-era cronies and corruptors?
And what if after an appropriate period of mourning the government fails to act against those that remain? Will the public tolerate it or are we on the cusp of another painful and inevitably bloody period of national upheaval?

Aceh Police Sexually Assaulted Gay NGO Workers - AHRW

The Grinch has no way of confirming the details of this case though it was brought to his attention about six weeks ago. Asian HRW (who produced the story below on their website) is a reputable organization that doesn't make specious accusations.
These allegations emerge four months into a three-year, multi-million dollar police training program in Aceh designed to improve police awareness of human rights and community policing among the province's 11,000 police officers.
The same week the training program was launched, a group of uniformed police beat to death - outside the offices of the chief of police in downtown Banda Aceh - a young secuity guard who mistakenly flew the Indonesian flag upside-down outside a government building.

BANDA ACEH, March 17, 2007 – A 32-years-old NGO worker and his same-sex partner were allegedly brutally tortured and sexually abused by the Banda Aceh police while in custody in January, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has revealed.
AHRC has named the NGO official as Mr. Hartayo and his partner as “Bobby”.
The alleged underlying motive behind the detention, torture and sexual abuse of the victims is because they are homosexuals, AHRC says in an ‘urgent action’ appeal.
“We were also informed that the police made the victims to sign a statement to the Village Head Chief not to indulge in homosexual actions again,” the appeal says.
“The AHRC is deeply concerned that such brutal violence against the victims was committed without hesitation not only by the civilian attackers but also by the police whose mandate is to protect the rights of people.”
On January 22 at around 11:30pm, the victim, Mr. Hartayo, a 32 year-old NGO worker in the Aceh province, was at home with his partner, Bobby, when two men, one of whom the victims identified as an employee of the local Pesona cafe below his boarding house, kicked down his front door and barged into his home, and proceeded to vandalize the property before assaulting both Mr. Hartayo and his partner.
Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were then forced out of their home and ordered to go outside by their attackers, where a crowd of some 15 people had gathered. The beatings and verbal abuse continued. Mr. Hartayo specifically recalled the words of one of his attackers: “You outsiders slander us; you soil our place with your filthy tricks.”
Mr. Hartayo was then ordered to immediately vacate the boarding house, and was marched back to his room to pack his belongings. His ID card and wallet were taken from him, and he was then made to squat on the ground with his partner, while his attackers deliberated on what to do next. They eventually decided to inform the local police authorities.
Four police officers arrived at the scene about 1.30am in an official police vehicle. Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were then taken to the Banda Raya police station.
There, both men were allegedly made to strip down to their underwear, and were then viciously beaten and verbally abused by the officers.
In his testimony, Mr. Hartayo alleges that the officers sexually abused him and then forced his partner to perform oral sex on him. Mr. Hartayo started weeping and attempted to push his partner away, only to be kicked and scolded by the officers who took some perverse “enjoyment” out of their humiliation.
The victims were then dragged to the police station courtyard where they were made to squat on the ground in their underwear. Officers then sprayed them with ice-cold water from the courtyard hosepipe. At this point, Bobby asked the officers for permission to go to the toilet. The officers refused, and instead forced him to urinate on Mr. Hartayo's head.
Mr. Hartayo and his partner were then taken to a police cell, where they were detained until the morning. Mr. Hartayo requested several times to contact his family to inform them of what had happened, a basic human right when facing criminal detention. Each time, his request was denied.
While in the police cell, Mr. Hartayo was instructed by the officers to introduce himself to the detainee who already occupied the cell. When Mr. Hartayo innocently stated that he was a homosexual, an officer entered the cell and severely beat him.
According to Mr. Hartayo, he was treated with complete contempt by all the officers he encountered during his detention.
At around 9:00am on January 23, Mr. Hartayo was finally allowed to speak to his fellow NGO co-workers, although for not longer than five minutes. Both Mr. Hartayo and Bobby were asked by representatives from the Aceh NGO Coalition whether they wanted to file a formal complaint.
Physically and mentally exhausted, both men decided not to pursue the case, and were then made to sign a statement to the Village Head Chief not to indulge in homosexual actions again.
“I felt that my dignity as a human being had been trampled,” Mr. Hartayo told the Aceh NGO Coalition.

Decisions, decisions....
Today was election day in Aceh. Early accounts suggest voter turnout was in the high 70s but little solid news on numbers till the first exit polls are released at 8 pm local.
The world's press are scuttling about analyzing the heck out of the situation and trying to figure out What It Means if the GAM slate comes out on top.
Quite extraordinary past few days, scenes unimaginable in Dec 2004 - driving home late Saturday, a light red wine buzz on smoking a #3 Romeo & Juliet with Herbie Hancock lowering the bass-line boom out the back of our midnight blue Kijang, the streets choked with young people on motorcycles doing what young people do; looking for dark corners to smoke and canoodle while dodging the authorities, in this case the religious police; the roadside burger stands packed to capacity with anxious, chain-smoking boys in prized Heavy Metal t-shirts eyeing girls backing 28" rear-ends into 24" Levis; families gathered in Banda Aceh back road kampungs to chat and swat mosquitoes, Mums heaping plate-loads of food in front of disinterested yoots; cops lounging, knee high faux-leather biker boots atop the handlebars of the their motorcycles looking for reasons ignore traffic infractions; tiny shop-house grocery-caves ablaze in kerosene light where the local power has died yet again while smoke coils from a hundreds small garbage fires.
I'm exhausted and exhilarated. Two months of seven-day weeks planning for the year-end came down to last week and this. Juggling journos and job interviews, starting the process of packing two years of my life into plastic boxes, finalizing all the paperwork debts and dues. Today was a bit of an off day on account of the elections so I started shutting down my office. There's already two large cardboard boxes loaded with papers and junk waiting for the tip tomorrow. My drawers are empty of all but a couple of paperclips, an orange highlighter and a shell I picked up in Lhokna that doubles as an ashtray. All my travel claims are ready and by tomorrow I'll have all the security guard declarations completed and it'll be time to tackle the filing cabinet.
The Han and I are scheduled to leave for the Great White North on the 20th or 21st for about a month. Do some skiing, catch the Habs live, maybe check out the Grinch's new cave if there's time. Then back to the Big Durian to sort out the next phase of our lives.
I'm feeling like a third party observer to my own life at the moment, utterly detached but living in the anger. Almost manic, cracking jokes, entertaining and no one but me can hear the fuse slowing burning. I have to keep moving. The rage still keeps me up nights: Black Label blunts it but I'm no child and that's a hell of a way to go.
There's rumors of a reprieve but frankly it would be better if I were not presented with that option. Folks seem to think that if a call comes from the warden at midnight on Dec 31st that I'm going to do cartwheels. And it is just not the case. Right now, staying with this outfit will be far harder than leaving for good.