When the going gets weird...

My favorite bits and pieces from the last couple of days

Snakes and Adders
The clearing of the 50+ hectare Rasuna Epicentrum lands smack in the centre of Jakarta and opposite the Grinch’s temporary lair claimed the life of a seven-meter-long reticulated python, crushed by a back-hoe on Saturday morning: as if I needed another reason to hate Aburizal Bakrie and his band of reptiles.

Save Me From Myself
A judge in Sulawesi fired because he was caught in a polygamist relationship (formally prohibited behavior for civil servants but tolerated, nudge-nudge, wink-wink claims he only married the other three women to prevent himself from committing adultery (ed: presumably with them...).

Top Cop Cock Block
Indonesian National Police and armed forces announced last week they will no longer accept Papuan recruits who have tried to increase to the size of their tackle through bindings and the use of mildly poisonous plants to encourage swelling on account of it affecting their readiness to fight.

Idiocy in Paradise
Much harrumphing in Bali after the release on youtube of teasers for a film that focuses on the Kuta Cowboy phenomena of young Indonesian surfer types servicing older foreign female tourists. Bali’s bandar “traditionalists” (ed: goons in checker-board sarongs and silly hats) are publicly outraged to discover that a small group of beach boys are providing the same types of services as the thousands of juvenile female sex workers trolling their wares on the Island of the Gods.
Gov Made Pastika – the much admired former police general – applauded the beach raids conducted this week which saw two dozen ‘muscular, tanned men’ detained and questioned.

The Company You Keep
The Justice and Human Rights Minister toured the country’s new bespoke prison wing for corruption suspects on Tuesday accompanied by….one of the country’s most loathed corruption suspects.

Roaring Mice
Gayus, a nobody in the tax office who has emerged at the centre of a poisonous new scandal after it was revealed he amassed over $3 million in kickbacks in a few short years is singing to investigators, implicating his former bosses, local prosecutors and senior officials at the AG’s offices, several judges and national-level police generals in a broader “judicial mafia” conspiracy that is too Byzantine to explain in brief. No one disputes that Gayus is a very small fish in the grand scheme of things, but what’ll be interesting to see is how he is remade into a national hero.

Ango-Indo Conspiracy Poisoned Local Kids: And a Nation Yawns….
The UK arm of an American company, Innospec Ltd, that manufactures fuel additives was fined $12.5 millions in a London court for bribing Indonesian officials $8.7 million to delay implementation of the government’s order to convert from leaded- to non-leaded gasoline for several years. Does anyone believe the American and British business communities in Jakarta were unaware that this was going on? Where’s the embassy demos, the outrage?

What’s His Name’s Disease, Contagious
Hard on the heels of news that a central figure in the $2.6 million Bank Indonesia vote-buying scandal is unable to comply with multiple subpoenas to appear before the KPK because she is undergoing therapy for ‘memory loss’ in Singapore, a crooked Bupati from Kalimantan has suddenly developed similar symptoms…. and was immediately released from prison.

Taliban-Lite Tangled Up in Blues
The forgetful corrupter (previous item) in Singapore, Nunun, is married to former deputy national police chief Adang Daradjatun who is a Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) legislator. It is hard to believe that such a conservative and pious (uhhh.. ya) man would be unaware that his wife is running around handing out millions of dollars in travelers cheques to crooked politicians so I for one am looking forward to his detention.
Better news came early this week with the detention of PKS legislator Mukhamad Misbakhun accused of forging a letter of credit to secure a $21.4 million bank loan that he subsequently defaulted on. The juice is in the fact that he borrowed from the collapsed Bank Century and was one of the prime movers behind the House’s investigation into the bank’s failure, a thinly disguised smear job directed at the current finance minister, Sri Mulyani.

Minister of Twits Strikes Again

From the ‘You’ve gotta give him credit for moxie’ file, Communications and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring is again making headlines with a list of A-List untouchables who will be immune to electronic eavesdropping if his proposed new wiretapping bill is approved.
Grinchtour has delved into the story in past posts – including the fact the minister is a Twitter-enabled (@tifsembiring) FB slave – so there’s no need to review in detail.
Suffice to say the former chair of Indonesia’s Taliban-Lite party (PKS) has thrown off any pretext of respectable Hamas-inspired social responsible, grassroots activism, to aggressively push for measures that will emasculate the only reliable prosecutor of graft cases in the country. His proposed new bill will create a new super agency to oversee the approval of all wiretaps, including those of the corruption eradication commission (KPK) whose 100% success rate in prosecuting corruption cases has been credited in large part to their ability to listen-in without securing a judge’s approval.

This new agency, which will leak like a bus load of juvenile hockey brats after an overnight road trip, is expected to handle all requests for wiretaps from several law enforcement and spooky agencies, including BIN, the Indonesian equivalent of the CIA.

Whoever heads up or oversees its operations – gosh, now I wonder which tier-three Minister will assume that duty, huh? – will secure a lush new source of funding for future elections, harem expansion and overseas real estate acquisitions.
To no one’s surprise, the Twit reserves a place for himself on a list of people (President, Attorney General, National Police chief etc) who’ll be exempt from KPK wiretaps. And, in addition to protecting an A-list of potential/current corruptors, the Twit’s proposal will extend the security blanket to their “families and colleagues” (WTF does that mean?) Indonesia Corruption Watch’s Emerson Yuntho told journos recently.
So, to review: Minster Twit assumes responsibility for approving all wiretaps – and lush new sources of funding – while providing immunity to the most powerful people in the country and their inner circles. If it survives the current civil society outrage, this is one piece of legislation that’ll pass through the DPR approval process like shit through a goose.
Quite the ambitious power grab for the head of a ministry once tasked with spying on the local media, that was officially shuttered by Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000, but managed to linger like a bad smell all these years.

Indonesia’s President ‘Bravely Retreats’: Minister of Twits Moves to Block Wiretaps

Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono continues to lead from the rear this week, abandoning key figures in his administration to the wolves while his coalition partners (including the Grinch’s favorite Twit) patiently chip away at national anti-corruption efforts.
In an effort to distance himself from possible scandal, SBY (aka Limp Biskit) fled the country as his embattled vice president and finance minister prepared to address a hostile parliamentary commission – which is 100 per cent apolitical and absolutely not in any way remotely related to a personal vendetta between the current head of Golkar and the minister – investigating the dodgy bailout of Bank Century last year.
For analysis of the President’s decision to vanish without a public show of support for Veep Boediono and the well-regarded Sri Mulyani Indrawati, we turn now to the Ballad of Brave Sir Robin:
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!
Boediono – formerly of Bank Indonesia – remains a cipher but Sri Mulyani is a national hero. A former IMF poobah, Forbes Magazine’s 23rd most powerful woman in the world (2008), and remarkably resilient to social pressures to helmet-ize her hair, she’s been around long enough to be an excellent counter-puncher: rather than airing her feelings about chief Golkar hood Aburizal Bakrie in the local media (who’ll garble the message), she went on record with her misgivings about the parliamentary investigation in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, an organ much more likely to influence Bakrie’s bottom line than the local business rags, all of whom are in someone’s pocket.
Let the games begin!

In other news:
The assault on efforts to bust corrupt businessmen and politicians remains one of the many news nodes spinning off recent scandals involving the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and once again, Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring is making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

“I don’t want law enforcers and government agencies to wiretap each other,” Antara quoted the Minister of Twits as saying. “This has happened and could happen again.”

A bit of background.
Indonesia's legal system is a disgrace: one can state categorically that there is no justice in the land. And don't talk to me about friggin' racial profiling, crack cocaine & mandatory minimum sentences, OJ Simpson and the cost of rigging a Manhattan jury. We’re talking orders of magnitude more f****d up than the worst North America can throw down.
The Grinch has worked within the system - most recently at the highest court in the land - and outside: from top-to-bottom the courts, attorney general's office, law enforcement, legal profession etc are populated by cabals of venal, money-grubbing, soulless safari-suited scumbags. They are overwhelmingly the majority. No matter how clean and idealistic they are at the start, the machine grinds ‘em into dust.
It is a reflection of the rot, that even Indonesia’s toothy civil society manages to suspend its sense of disbelief long enough to stamp senior cops "clean" even though they live in million dollar homes, drive Harleys and send their kids to school abroad, ostensibly on a $400.00/mo salary. The clean ones are the ones who have stolen enough to afford to be clean.
The KPK is the most effective (only!) institution investigating corruption cases in Indonesia. They've nailed many pelts above their doors and, while most have been the low-hanging-fruit-variety, (plot: old school crooked politician filmed entering 5-Star hotel suite rented by industrialist empty-handed; exits with suitcase fulla dough) they are to be commended for their work.
The KPK – which operates independently of any government ministry and reports directly to the Presidential Palace – is staffed by the best and brightest, including cops, lawyers, accountants, actuaries, techies etc. They are uber-nationalistic and hate the way their country is portrayed overseas. I wouldn’t say they are ‘anti-foreigner’ (they’ve received heaps of help from the FBI and others) but there is definite ‘f***-you’ faction that bristles at what is sees as Westerners lecturing them about their own country (topic for another day, perhaps).
It also enjoys the right – a scary one in any jurisdiction – to conduct warrant-less wiretaps. Desperate times require desperate measures and it was Parliament itself that approved these measures a few years back as being necessary to ensure successful cases were mounted. All was hunky dory until the mouth-breathers in Parliament – the most corrupt institution in RI according to a 2009 Transparency International report – discovered that they too are subject to KPK taps. Doh!
The KPK itself has been embroiled in a major scandal the past few months. Its chair is on trial for allegedly organizing the contract killing of a bent businessman last year who was supposedly blackmailing him for copping a handjob from his third wife, a caddy at a local golf course. Disclosures by the KPK boss prior to trial lead to a very senior cop and a millionaire businessman (allegedly) collaborating to frame two well-regarded members of the KPK board for taking bribes.
It’s all very Byzantine but the upshot is that the public is furious with the police and AG, the Limp Biskit has intervened and the investigation is in the process of being ‘legally’ dropped (as opposed to illegally dropped which, seriously, is kinda what has happened).
Into all this wades the fellow who is rapidly emerging as my personal favorite political piñata and all-round doofus. Fresh from cutting access to blogs around the country, blaming catastrophic natural disasters on pornography, and censoring an Aussie movie about murdered journalists in East Timor, Minister Tifatul, he of Twitter & Facebook fame, has decided that restricting KPK’s use of wiretaps - and gelding the KPK - is in the public's best interest.
To be fair, Twitfat's pronouncements on this issue make a valid point. Too many government agencies (five at last count) can tap yer phone, though I understand all but the KPK require a judge's signature, a formality in a land where a Rolex (hell, a Swatch!) will get you off a murder charge.
Warrantless wiretaps make this civil libertarian very queasy. So too does the massive public clamoring for the President to intervene directly in the police investigation into the KPK case (more fertile ground for Blog musings), but to suggest it and a revamped Porno Law are public priorities is laughable.
It’s all the more suspicious because of Twitfat’s pedigree as the former head of the supposedly incorruptible Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) aka Taliban-Lite. PKS is one of the president’s coalition partners. Talk about mixed messages: After prevaricating and stumbling about in the wilds for Javanese semantics for ages, Limp Biskit last week declared anti-corruption efforts to be a ‘Jihad’, even as members of his own cabinetare working diligently to undermine one of the key tools the KPK has in prosecuting that war, and he abandons his top aides to a parliamentary investigation with barely a murmur.

More on Indonesian Minister Blocking Blog Access

This story has kinda vanished - there's been little mention about it in 'mainstream' media struggling to do justice to news about the KPK, the Antasari trial, Bank Century investigation etc etc - and I've been too busy to spend a lot of time checking out the local blogosphere.
But from what I've been able to piece together, the Minister for Communications and Technology, Tifatul Sembiring, ordered his staff to issue a letter to Internet providers around the country to block access to a specific blog that was (re)publishing the controversial Dutch cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Good little Droogies that they are, the ring-kissers decided to impress the boss with a letter ordering access to all blogsites be blocked. As far as I know, the only company to comply was my provider, First Media.
By all accounts the Minister is wired. He has his own (dormant) website , a blog and Twitter account @tifsembiring (though who actually composes his tweets is unclear). You don't want a modern day Luddite in this position - PKS's ranks are swollen with urban professionals - so in that sense he might be the right pick. But....
This specific case appears to have been resolved now - I'll double check later at home to see if FM has turned the tap on again - but the larger questions will likely will remain - unaddressed:
- by what right does a Minister decide unilaterally what should and should not be accessible to the general public;
- what does it tell us about the Minister's likely agenda - Pak Tifatul is the co-founder and outgoing chairman of the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) - six weeks into a (potential) five year appointment that his first act of office is to restrict access to information;
- is a broader clampdown on how the Internet is used and information, disseminated, in the works and,
- what if any role should the private sector in Indonesia play in pushing back against government edicts of this type.