Thursday, January 24, 2013
In Floods
Friday, May 18, 2012
It's been a weird couple of weeks even by G's standards.
Three young relatives of immediate friends have died, including a five-year-old girl taken by dengue. The Grinchlettes came down with the chicken pox - passed along by an elder hatchling owned by the couple who keep our den tidy and the larder stocked - which was unpleasant but not as unpleasant as I'd imagined.
After six agonizing months of hand-wringing the nameless, incompetent and risk-averse government agency that funds my work has gotten off the pot, found the money and wants to plow ahead NOW-NOW-NOW-NOW-NOW (meaning another 15-months of employment), at the very moment that a private sector suitor has come knocking, all pimped out and offering an obscenely large amount of money for yer Grinch to jump ship in exchange for a further four year commitment to Indonesia.
... and then there's this: Wolf Boy on YouTube
Written and performed by an old, old friend in Montreal, and filmed on a mobile phone last weekend in some dodgy Plateau dive (I'm guessing), this dirge Wolf Boy was apparently inspired by yer G's mutterings 15 years ago about wanting to be a foreign correspondent (and then going out and doing it).
Now, Kurt's a lovely fellow, a Cohen-esque Boulevardier, the owner or many black-sweater-and-black-jean combinations, a retired Christmas tree vendor, 4am bagel aficionado and cunning linguist, or at least was when I last spoke to him, like, 100 years ago. So I have a lot of questions, chief among them being: where's the royalties at, homeboy?
Three young relatives of immediate friends have died, including a five-year-old girl taken by dengue. The Grinchlettes came down with the chicken pox - passed along by an elder hatchling owned by the couple who keep our den tidy and the larder stocked - which was unpleasant but not as unpleasant as I'd imagined.
After six agonizing months of hand-wringing the nameless, incompetent and risk-averse government agency that funds my work has gotten off the pot, found the money and wants to plow ahead NOW-NOW-NOW-NOW-NOW (meaning another 15-months of employment), at the very moment that a private sector suitor has come knocking, all pimped out and offering an obscenely large amount of money for yer Grinch to jump ship in exchange for a further four year commitment to Indonesia.
... and then there's this: Wolf Boy on YouTube
Written and performed by an old, old friend in Montreal, and filmed on a mobile phone last weekend in some dodgy Plateau dive (I'm guessing), this dirge Wolf Boy was apparently inspired by yer G's mutterings 15 years ago about wanting to be a foreign correspondent (and then going out and doing it).
Now, Kurt's a lovely fellow, a Cohen-esque Boulevardier, the owner or many black-sweater-and-black-jean combinations, a retired Christmas tree vendor, 4am bagel aficionado and cunning linguist, or at least was when I last spoke to him, like, 100 years ago. So I have a lot of questions, chief among them being: where's the royalties at, homeboy?
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Angels& Demons
I'm not even going to begin to make excuses for the unseemly lag in blogs to this site. Hopefully this will serve to restart my engines (aye, where have we read that before, Papa Grinch?)
Michael Buehler's fascinating article below appeared in Inside Indonesia this week.
http://www.insideindonesia.org/stories/angels-and-demons-22042912
It is probably too "inside" for most tastes but for observers of the reform process here, development issues and the blind adulation afforded the current SBY administration by (most recently) David Cameron, Ban Ki-Moon and the Obaminator, it serves as a clear-eyed evaluation of the efforts of so-called reform champions and the emergence of a new class of Raptor as (highly!) unlikely defenders of democracy.
Every year, the development industry in Jakarta churns out ‘update’, ‘stock-taking’ and ‘rapid appraisal’ reports about the progress of democratisation and decentralisation in Indonesian local politics. Often these reports deal with the great complexity of their topic by focusing on the behaviour of individual politicians. Virtually every report picks out a few ‘reform-minded’ individuals and portrays them as leaders who are both ‘responsive’ and ‘responsible’ to citizen demands. These heroes of reform are then celebrated as pushing forward Indonesia’s democratisation and decentralisation against the interests of ‘old elites’ and ‘entrenched interests’.
In provinces, districts and municipalities that have been blessed with such ‘good leadership’ change is happening, so the story goes. In localities where ‘bosses’, ‘little kings’ and ‘predatory forces’ rule, in contrast, progress is depicted as stagnating. In this context, multilateral organisations have outdone each other over the past decade in their praise for half a dozen so-called reformers running the executive government of places such as Gorontalo (Sulawesi), Jembrana (Bali), Solok (West Sumatra), Sragen and Kebumen (both Central Java). Frequently discussed in the expatriate bars in Jakarta but rarely visited for in-depth research, these places loom large in the minds of development consultants. Stories abound of how the executive government heads in these few regions place the will of the people above everything and offer ‘best practice’ examples to other politicians scattered across the archipelago.
The simplicity and naiveté of such a Jesuit worldview, in which ‘good’ fights against ‘evil ‘, have been exposed by developments that have quietly unfolded in Indonesian local politics over recent months. Suddenly, one of the good governance heroes has advocated dismantling a pillar of local governance reform, while the predators are proving to be more interested in defending democracy.
Ironically, Gamawan Fauzi owes much of his stellar rise in Indonesian politics to these direct elections, and for a long time he was the poster boy of the development agencies, lionised as the main example of the new breed of local leaders winning their way to power by delivering good governance and reform. Appointed district head of Solok in West Sumatra in 1995, he won (indirect) elections in 2000. In 2005, people elected him as Governor of West Sumatra province, a post he left a few years later to become interior minister.
In past years, I sat through countless meetings and workshops in which donor agency folks busily constructed a narrative about Fauzi’s meteoric rise to the inner circles of the Yudhoyono administration. The main story line was that Gamawan Fauzi’s pro-democracy attitude and successful good governance programs had gotten him re-elected as district head, then governor and finally catapulted him into Yudhoyono’s cabinet. He was, in other words, a messianic figure whose exemplary behaviour showed ‘old elites’ that support for democracy was being rewarded.
Only a few people dared to say that Fauzi’s shallow reform programs in Solok collapsed soon after he had moved on to greener pastures. Fauzi could not fire many of the corrupt bureaucrats in the local administration since they were protected by Indonesia’s decrepit civil service law. Hence, such bureaucrats simply waited for Fauzi’s departure to regain control. Most development consultants were also unaware of the fact that governor Fauzi had re-introduced an older form of local administration that goes back to pre-colonial times called the Nagari system, which excludes women from political decision-making processes by restricting participation to male clan chiefs. Finally, the fact that Gamawan Fauzi was also one of the most prolific local executives in Indonesia with regard to the adoption and implementation of discriminatory syariah local regulations received no mention at all in development industry circles.
Good-looking, as comfortable donning a Western business suit as wearing a traditional khaki civil service uniform, fluent in English and well-versed in development-lingo thanks to some exposure to development industry seminars early on in his career (his résumé notes participation in such grandly-titled events as ‘The Role of Local Government in Implementing APEC Declaration’(1995); ‘Reinventing Government’ (1995); ‘Civil-Affair and Civil Military Operation’ (1999); ‘Implementing Integrity Pacts’ (2003)), Gamawan Fauzi became the darling of the development industry soon after the fall of Suharto in 1998.
Rarely a major donor workshop on decentralisation went by in Jakarta without Gamawan Fauzi speaking in his capacity as a ‘reformer’, or a ‘democracy-minded politician’. Finally a local executive head who said exactly the kind of things the donor community was craving to hear from Indonesian politicians. Fauzi’s recent U-turn suggests he was but a well-trained parrot, or simply a shrewd politician who knew what kind of rhetoric would raise his profile in democratising Indonesia and eventually pave the way for a career in national politics.
District head of Gowa between 1993 and 2003, Syahrul Yasin Limpo made national headlines when he was busted in a 2002 drug raid together with a prostitute. Others may have seen such an incident as a setback to their political career, but Syahrul not only managed to become the head of the provincial Anti-Drug Commission and a prolific anti-drug columnist in a local newspaper soon afterwards but also ran as deputy governor in 2003. In his successful campaign for governor a few years later, his official campaign slogan conveyed a simple and apt message to the electorate: ‘Don’t look back!’ In 2012, he launched his re-election campaign for a second term as governor. Driving around one of Indonesia’s poorest provinces in various high-end luxury cars with a number plate that consists only of his initials SYL while commanding several private security forces and hundreds of thugs, Syahrul Yasin Limpo lords over South Sulawesi precisely like one of the ‘little kings’ mentioned in donor agency reports.
Flanking Syahrul Yasin Limpo during the press conference in April 2012 in support of local democracy were several other notorious governors such as Awang Faroek Ishak from East Kalimantan province, who was named a suspect in a corruption case surrounding the divestment of PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) shares in 2010, Teras Narang from Central Kalimantan, who had come up on the radar screen of the Financial Transactions Reporting and Analysis Centre (PPATK) for suspicious payments into his bank account in 2009, and last but not least, Ratu Atut Chosiyah from Banten, scion of one of Indonesia’s most corrupt families that has run the local construction industry in a criminal fashion for decades with the help of tens of thousands of thugs organised in martial art associations. In short, the politicians that stood up for democracy were hardly the kind of types one would see attending donor meetings and democracy workshops at swanky Jakarta hotels.
For starters, it offers a rare glimpse into centre-periphery tensions in Indonesia, a topic that is grossly understudied by academics and practitioners alike. Various efforts of national level politicians to re-centralise power both within state institutions and the party system in past years have gone unopposed. Arguably, the absence of any resistance is due to the fact that the institutional powers transferred back to the centre were not very substantive. Likewise, the re-centralisation within the party system did not matter to sub-national politicians because their careers do not depend on the dysfunctional parties anyway but on their personal networks and connections.
So why then does Fauzi’s proposal aggravate local executive heads? Above all, their reaction shows that democratic institutions have become a viable power base for politicians who a few years back seemed least likely to have any interest in them. Many of these governors are rich enough to bribe national politicians and officials to protect themselves from becoming corruption suspects but lack the financial and political connections to influence national party headquarters. Gamawan Fauzi’s plan would empower the national party headquarters, all of which have adopted regulations in recent years that concentrate power at the national level when putting forward candidates for local executive head elections.
Most of these governors are also local figures who have established networks in their respective constituencies, sometimes over decades. Fauzi’s proposal would render such ‘social capital’ – consisting of connections with groups from vote-canvassers, local notables, leaders of prayer groups through to criminal networks – worthless and therefore constitute a threat to local politicians’ prospects of winning political power.
There is no doubt that Limpo and his colleagues had first and foremost themselves in mind and not the people when they publicly attacked Fauzi’s plan in April. After all, governors’ offices provide legal and illegal access to resources, the possibility of implementing predatory taxes and levies or simply the chance to embezzle state funds. Given the riches that come with an executive post, it is not surprising that many of the aforementioned figures are running for a second term, including Syahrul Yasin Limpo whose entire political program once again consists of a single sentence: ‘Don’t stop, Komandan!’
The contradiction between these figures’ pious rhetoric and their worldly motives for defending democracy is not a reason to abolish direct elections for local executive heads, however. As the eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant showed in his treatise Zum Ewigen Frieden (Perpetual Peace) there were always people who believed that ‘a republic would have to be a nation of angels, because men with their selfish inclinations are not capable of a constitution of such sublime form.’ Kant refuted this position: ‘The problem of organising a state, however hard it may seem, can be solved even for a race of devils, if only they are intelligent.’ The key thing is for those devils to ‘establish a constitution in such a way that, although their private intentions conflict, they check each other, with the result that their public conduct is the same as if they had no such intentions.’ In other words, the right institutions can constrain the personal agendas of even the very worst politicians, and force them in new directions.
Direct elections for local executive heads in Indonesia are an approximation to the system Kant described. In the old days of President Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime, recruitment, promotion and retirement mechanisms for public officials were upward oriented and ultimately regulated by Suharto.
The introduction of direct executive elections in the context of decentralisation created a more competitive environment for political elites. My research shows, for instance, that there are more than two ‘effective candidates’ in almost all local executive head elections conducted in Indonesia since 2005. In other words, in most races, there are at least two candidates with a good chance of winning and relatively equal strength with regard to the number of votes they obtain. The domination of provincial, district and municipality executive head elections by an all-powerful single figure is rare in contemporary Indonesia.
At the same time, it seems that although extensive family-based political networks exist, local Indonesian politicians struggle to establish enduring dynasties. Although one may say that it is too early to come to such a conclusion since dynasties have not yet had the opportunity to accumulate power through a series of elections in the same locality, we can equally say it is too early to come to Gamawan Fauzi’s conclusion that Indonesia needs to abolish such elections in order to prevent local dynasties.
The competitive nature of local electoral politics has disrupted ties within the political elite. As competition re-ordered the relatively stable political structure of the New Order years, political elites have faced new challenges to stay in power. To find allies and support for their battles with one another, political elites who could afford to ignore citizens during the New Order period have now started to ‘reach-down’ in the political arena. Consequently, new alliances have emerged between political elites and ordinary citizens in the context of direct executive elections.
The creation of such alliances may have allowed elites to defend their political position overall, but concessions made during these struggles with one another have come to limit them in new and significant ways. Most importantly, local politicians have become dependent on ordinary citizens to a degree unthinkable during the New Order and therefore have to go to great lengths to obtain support from the electorate. For instance, every candidate serious about running for local executive head office has to spend an extended period of time on the campaign trail, travelling through villages and small towns for months on end. In addition, politicians have to buy votes and deliver favours to the electorate prior to elections, which has allowed communities to press for at least some sort of service delivery, however crude.
Direct elections for local executive figures assure such competition. Hence, Gamawan Fauzi‘s proposal to end direct elections for governors would deal one of the most severe blows of recent years to Indonesia’s democratisation efforts. Against this backdrop, foreign democracy crusaders may want to read, if not Kant’s treatise, then at least Dan Brown’s less highbrow novel Angels and Demons that introduced a broader public to the world of ambigrams that play an important role in Christian mysticism. Ambigrams are words that, when read from another viewpoint or perspective, reveal a word that is different from the original. Such an alternative viewpoint on who are the forces in favour of and against local democratisation in Indonesia may be useful when putting together the guest lists for future development industry workshops.
Michael Buehler (michibuehler@gmx.net) is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at Northern Illinois University.
Michael Buehler's fascinating article below appeared in Inside Indonesia this week.
http://www.insideindonesia.org/stories/angels-and-demons-22042912
It is probably too "inside" for most tastes but for observers of the reform process here, development issues and the blind adulation afforded the current SBY administration by (most recently) David Cameron, Ban Ki-Moon and the Obaminator, it serves as a clear-eyed evaluation of the efforts of so-called reform champions and the emergence of a new class of Raptor as (highly!) unlikely defenders of democracy.
Angels and demons
Sunday, 22 April 2012 11:05
While a famous ‘reformer’ tries to undermine Indonesia’s local democratic institutions, the predators come to the rescue
Every year, the development industry in Jakarta churns out ‘update’, ‘stock-taking’ and ‘rapid appraisal’ reports about the progress of democratisation and decentralisation in Indonesian local politics. Often these reports deal with the great complexity of their topic by focusing on the behaviour of individual politicians. Virtually every report picks out a few ‘reform-minded’ individuals and portrays them as leaders who are both ‘responsive’ and ‘responsible’ to citizen demands. These heroes of reform are then celebrated as pushing forward Indonesia’s democratisation and decentralisation against the interests of ‘old elites’ and ‘entrenched interests’.
In provinces, districts and municipalities that have been blessed with such ‘good leadership’ change is happening, so the story goes. In localities where ‘bosses’, ‘little kings’ and ‘predatory forces’ rule, in contrast, progress is depicted as stagnating. In this context, multilateral organisations have outdone each other over the past decade in their praise for half a dozen so-called reformers running the executive government of places such as Gorontalo (Sulawesi), Jembrana (Bali), Solok (West Sumatra), Sragen and Kebumen (both Central Java). Frequently discussed in the expatriate bars in Jakarta but rarely visited for in-depth research, these places loom large in the minds of development consultants. Stories abound of how the executive government heads in these few regions place the will of the people above everything and offer ‘best practice’ examples to other politicians scattered across the archipelago.
The simplicity and naiveté of such a Jesuit worldview, in which ‘good’ fights against ‘evil ‘, have been exposed by developments that have quietly unfolded in Indonesian local politics over recent months. Suddenly, one of the good governance heroes has advocated dismantling a pillar of local governance reform, while the predators are proving to be more interested in defending democracy.
The reformer who became a conservative
In late 2009, only a few weeks after he was appointed Interior Minister, Gamawan Fauzi proposed to abolish direct elections for governors. Such elections had been introduced in 2005 as a way to empower citizens. They have shaken up the way local politics works. Now, Gamawan Fauzi argued, direct elections for governors were too costly due to the rampant money politics and vote buying associated with these races. At the same time, such direct elections would facilitate the establishment of local dynasties, he claimed. The new minister suggested reviving the system that was in place before 2005 in which provincial parliaments elected governors.Ironically, Gamawan Fauzi owes much of his stellar rise in Indonesian politics to these direct elections, and for a long time he was the poster boy of the development agencies, lionised as the main example of the new breed of local leaders winning their way to power by delivering good governance and reform. Appointed district head of Solok in West Sumatra in 1995, he won (indirect) elections in 2000. In 2005, people elected him as Governor of West Sumatra province, a post he left a few years later to become interior minister.
In past years, I sat through countless meetings and workshops in which donor agency folks busily constructed a narrative about Fauzi’s meteoric rise to the inner circles of the Yudhoyono administration. The main story line was that Gamawan Fauzi’s pro-democracy attitude and successful good governance programs had gotten him re-elected as district head, then governor and finally catapulted him into Yudhoyono’s cabinet. He was, in other words, a messianic figure whose exemplary behaviour showed ‘old elites’ that support for democracy was being rewarded.
Only a few people dared to say that Fauzi’s shallow reform programs in Solok collapsed soon after he had moved on to greener pastures. Fauzi could not fire many of the corrupt bureaucrats in the local administration since they were protected by Indonesia’s decrepit civil service law. Hence, such bureaucrats simply waited for Fauzi’s departure to regain control. Most development consultants were also unaware of the fact that governor Fauzi had re-introduced an older form of local administration that goes back to pre-colonial times called the Nagari system, which excludes women from political decision-making processes by restricting participation to male clan chiefs. Finally, the fact that Gamawan Fauzi was also one of the most prolific local executives in Indonesia with regard to the adoption and implementation of discriminatory syariah local regulations received no mention at all in development industry circles.
Good-looking, as comfortable donning a Western business suit as wearing a traditional khaki civil service uniform, fluent in English and well-versed in development-lingo thanks to some exposure to development industry seminars early on in his career (his résumé notes participation in such grandly-titled events as ‘The Role of Local Government in Implementing APEC Declaration’(1995); ‘Reinventing Government’ (1995); ‘Civil-Affair and Civil Military Operation’ (1999); ‘Implementing Integrity Pacts’ (2003)), Gamawan Fauzi became the darling of the development industry soon after the fall of Suharto in 1998.
Rarely a major donor workshop on decentralisation went by in Jakarta without Gamawan Fauzi speaking in his capacity as a ‘reformer’, or a ‘democracy-minded politician’. Finally a local executive head who said exactly the kind of things the donor community was craving to hear from Indonesian politicians. Fauzi’s recent U-turn suggests he was but a well-trained parrot, or simply a shrewd politician who knew what kind of rhetoric would raise his profile in democratising Indonesia and eventually pave the way for a career in national politics.
Predators to the rescue
In the face of Fauzi’s proposal to wind back local democracy, support for the country’s local democratic institutions has come from unexpected quarters. In April 2012, Syahrul Yasin Limpo the head of the Provincial Government Association (APPSI) and South Sulawesi Governor publicly lambasted Fauzi’s proposal as undemocratic and accused the Interior Minister of trying to ‘take away rights from the people’. Limpo, of course, is no stranger to observers of Indonesian local politics since he too has frequently been in the news over past years, although for altogether different reasons than Gamawan Fauzi.District head of Gowa between 1993 and 2003, Syahrul Yasin Limpo made national headlines when he was busted in a 2002 drug raid together with a prostitute. Others may have seen such an incident as a setback to their political career, but Syahrul not only managed to become the head of the provincial Anti-Drug Commission and a prolific anti-drug columnist in a local newspaper soon afterwards but also ran as deputy governor in 2003. In his successful campaign for governor a few years later, his official campaign slogan conveyed a simple and apt message to the electorate: ‘Don’t look back!’ In 2012, he launched his re-election campaign for a second term as governor. Driving around one of Indonesia’s poorest provinces in various high-end luxury cars with a number plate that consists only of his initials SYL while commanding several private security forces and hundreds of thugs, Syahrul Yasin Limpo lords over South Sulawesi precisely like one of the ‘little kings’ mentioned in donor agency reports.
Flanking Syahrul Yasin Limpo during the press conference in April 2012 in support of local democracy were several other notorious governors such as Awang Faroek Ishak from East Kalimantan province, who was named a suspect in a corruption case surrounding the divestment of PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) shares in 2010, Teras Narang from Central Kalimantan, who had come up on the radar screen of the Financial Transactions Reporting and Analysis Centre (PPATK) for suspicious payments into his bank account in 2009, and last but not least, Ratu Atut Chosiyah from Banten, scion of one of Indonesia’s most corrupt families that has run the local construction industry in a criminal fashion for decades with the help of tens of thousands of thugs organised in martial art associations. In short, the politicians that stood up for democracy were hardly the kind of types one would see attending donor meetings and democracy workshops at swanky Jakarta hotels.
Heaven versus hell?
The emphatic criticism of Fauzi’s plan, which is now awaiting approval in the parliament, by these governors who are surrounded by a taint of illegality and figure in the public mind for their run-ins with the law rather than their democratic credentials, is interesting for various reasons.For starters, it offers a rare glimpse into centre-periphery tensions in Indonesia, a topic that is grossly understudied by academics and practitioners alike. Various efforts of national level politicians to re-centralise power both within state institutions and the party system in past years have gone unopposed. Arguably, the absence of any resistance is due to the fact that the institutional powers transferred back to the centre were not very substantive. Likewise, the re-centralisation within the party system did not matter to sub-national politicians because their careers do not depend on the dysfunctional parties anyway but on their personal networks and connections.
So why then does Fauzi’s proposal aggravate local executive heads? Above all, their reaction shows that democratic institutions have become a viable power base for politicians who a few years back seemed least likely to have any interest in them. Many of these governors are rich enough to bribe national politicians and officials to protect themselves from becoming corruption suspects but lack the financial and political connections to influence national party headquarters. Gamawan Fauzi’s plan would empower the national party headquarters, all of which have adopted regulations in recent years that concentrate power at the national level when putting forward candidates for local executive head elections.
Most of these governors are also local figures who have established networks in their respective constituencies, sometimes over decades. Fauzi’s proposal would render such ‘social capital’ – consisting of connections with groups from vote-canvassers, local notables, leaders of prayer groups through to criminal networks – worthless and therefore constitute a threat to local politicians’ prospects of winning political power.
There is no doubt that Limpo and his colleagues had first and foremost themselves in mind and not the people when they publicly attacked Fauzi’s plan in April. After all, governors’ offices provide legal and illegal access to resources, the possibility of implementing predatory taxes and levies or simply the chance to embezzle state funds. Given the riches that come with an executive post, it is not surprising that many of the aforementioned figures are running for a second term, including Syahrul Yasin Limpo whose entire political program once again consists of a single sentence: ‘Don’t stop, Komandan!’
The contradiction between these figures’ pious rhetoric and their worldly motives for defending democracy is not a reason to abolish direct elections for local executive heads, however. As the eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant showed in his treatise Zum Ewigen Frieden (Perpetual Peace) there were always people who believed that ‘a republic would have to be a nation of angels, because men with their selfish inclinations are not capable of a constitution of such sublime form.’ Kant refuted this position: ‘The problem of organising a state, however hard it may seem, can be solved even for a race of devils, if only they are intelligent.’ The key thing is for those devils to ‘establish a constitution in such a way that, although their private intentions conflict, they check each other, with the result that their public conduct is the same as if they had no such intentions.’ In other words, the right institutions can constrain the personal agendas of even the very worst politicians, and force them in new directions.
Direct elections for local executive heads in Indonesia are an approximation to the system Kant described. In the old days of President Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime, recruitment, promotion and retirement mechanisms for public officials were upward oriented and ultimately regulated by Suharto.
The introduction of direct executive elections in the context of decentralisation created a more competitive environment for political elites. My research shows, for instance, that there are more than two ‘effective candidates’ in almost all local executive head elections conducted in Indonesia since 2005. In other words, in most races, there are at least two candidates with a good chance of winning and relatively equal strength with regard to the number of votes they obtain. The domination of provincial, district and municipality executive head elections by an all-powerful single figure is rare in contemporary Indonesia.
At the same time, it seems that although extensive family-based political networks exist, local Indonesian politicians struggle to establish enduring dynasties. Although one may say that it is too early to come to such a conclusion since dynasties have not yet had the opportunity to accumulate power through a series of elections in the same locality, we can equally say it is too early to come to Gamawan Fauzi’s conclusion that Indonesia needs to abolish such elections in order to prevent local dynasties.
The competitive nature of local electoral politics has disrupted ties within the political elite. As competition re-ordered the relatively stable political structure of the New Order years, political elites have faced new challenges to stay in power. To find allies and support for their battles with one another, political elites who could afford to ignore citizens during the New Order period have now started to ‘reach-down’ in the political arena. Consequently, new alliances have emerged between political elites and ordinary citizens in the context of direct executive elections.
The creation of such alliances may have allowed elites to defend their political position overall, but concessions made during these struggles with one another have come to limit them in new and significant ways. Most importantly, local politicians have become dependent on ordinary citizens to a degree unthinkable during the New Order and therefore have to go to great lengths to obtain support from the electorate. For instance, every candidate serious about running for local executive head office has to spend an extended period of time on the campaign trail, travelling through villages and small towns for months on end. In addition, politicians have to buy votes and deliver favours to the electorate prior to elections, which has allowed communities to press for at least some sort of service delivery, however crude.
It’s relationships that count
In short, it is the relationships within elites, not the personal character traits or the behaviours of individual politicians, that shape power dynamics in contemporary Indonesian local politics. By competing against each other, ‘predatory forces’, ‘little kings’ and ‘entrenched elites’ have pushed state-society relations in more democratic directions – in spite of themselves.Direct elections for local executive figures assure such competition. Hence, Gamawan Fauzi‘s proposal to end direct elections for governors would deal one of the most severe blows of recent years to Indonesia’s democratisation efforts. Against this backdrop, foreign democracy crusaders may want to read, if not Kant’s treatise, then at least Dan Brown’s less highbrow novel Angels and Demons that introduced a broader public to the world of ambigrams that play an important role in Christian mysticism. Ambigrams are words that, when read from another viewpoint or perspective, reveal a word that is different from the original. Such an alternative viewpoint on who are the forces in favour of and against local democratisation in Indonesia may be useful when putting together the guest lists for future development industry workshops.
Michael Buehler (michibuehler@gmx.net) is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at Northern Illinois University.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Suryo Bambang Sulisto is the Grinch's Hero of the Week.
Kadin (Indonesian Chamber of Commerce) has rarely rocked the boat because the status quo is so damn lucrative. However, the new boss and a Board made up of forward-looking, sharp-toothed businessman including James Riady, the president director of Garuda Airlines, Emirsyah Satar, and First Media's Peter Gontha is shaking things up and no doubt pissing off the old guard. Of course they threw the Palace a bone by inexplicably including president neophyte 28-year-old son on the BoD but that's a small price to pay because the big boys will eat him for lunch.
We'll see how long it is before someone buries a knife in his back, but in the meantime, bravo Pak Suryo.
Graft fuels Indonesia's infrastructure woes
By Shirley Wibisono | AFP Dec 12, 2011
When Indonesia's longest suspension bridge suddenly collapsed last month, killing more than 20 people, allegations immediately surfaced that corruption was behind the disaster.
Police have come up with little explanation as to why the 720-metre-long (2,400-foot-long) structure on Borneo island -- built just 10 years ago to resemble San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge -- gave way, sending dozens of vehicles into the river. But they are investigating accusations by the country's corruption-fighting commission and others that the materials used were of poorer quality and cheaper than the construction company claimed.
"The bridge collapse is one example of how quality is being compromised by corruption, where A-grade materials are substituted with lower-grade ones. That's very dangerous," Indonesian Chamber of Commerce chairman Suryo Bambang Sulisto told AFP. "It's common for corruption to happen at all stages in Indonesian infrastructure projects, whether it's during the tender process or extortion along the way."
After the incident, parliament called for an audit of every major bridge in the country, in which East Java province alone found nine on the brink of buckling. As developed countries remain in the economic doldrums, overseas investors have taken a keen interest in Indonesia, with foreign direct investment expected to top $20 billion by the year end.
A wealth of natural resources and a burgeoning middle class that fuels Indonesia's economic expansion, forecast to reach 6.5 percent this year, make the country an attractive prospect. But investors consistently cite corruption as a major deterrent and bemoan the lack of reliable infrastructure, with companies often forced to build their own roads, bridges, railways and ports to do business in the sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands.
Indonesia's 2011-2025 development plan calls for around $440 billion of investment in highways, harbours and power plants, and to tackle crippling traffic in major cities. London-based risk consultancy Business Monitor International (BMI) says high levels of corruption have "severely impeded investment in the country's infrastructure from non-public sources". "Although the Indonesian government is working hard to attract private investors, there is still an underlying threat of corruption and a lack of transparency in the tendering process," a BMI report said.
A World Bank analysis found corruption could add up to 20 percent to the existing costs of projects in Indonesia. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won two elections on promises to tackle graft in one of the most corrupt countries in Asia, but critics say he has failed to make any genuine difference to the culture of graft and impunity. A Gallup poll released in October found that 91 percent of Indonesians believe corruption in government is widespread, compared to 84 percent in 2006.
At a function to mark International Anti-Corruption Day on Friday, Yudhoyono called for action and told law enforcers to go after the big fish.
"We should not make this event a ceremonial thing, but let's use it to reflect and improve our efforts to eradicate corruption in this country, especially during my term," he said, according to his official website. "What we need is action," he said, calling on anti-corruption activists and leaders of NGOs to help eradicate graft.
But corruption is an old and deep-seated problem, said economist Sri Adiningsih from Gadjah Mada University. "Here in Indonesia, it is a common practice for businessmen to bribe officials to get a project," Adiningsih told AFP. "The government have actually placed layers of preventive measures to deal with this problem. However, we are still lacking efforts in law enforcement," she said. "It is very difficult to tackle this widespread practice since the younger civil servants tend to follow the common practice as soon as they are involved in the system."
Indonesia has set up several bodies to tackle graft and the country's corruption ranking has improved slightly to 100 from 110 last year, out of 183 countries, according to a report by Transparency International last week. Poor infrastructure has also elevated distribution costs, so that a 50-kilogram (110-pound) sack of cement which sells for around $9 in Jakarta can cost as much as $130 in the remote and poorly connected eastern Papua region.
"Logistics costs, which normally account for five to six percent of production costs, can eat up between 10 to 15 percent in Indonesia," Indonesian Employers Association chairman Sofjan Wanandi told AFP. "If this goes on, Indonesians will likely start importing more goods instead of producing locally," he added.
Kadin (Indonesian Chamber of Commerce) has rarely rocked the boat because the status quo is so damn lucrative. However, the new boss and a Board made up of forward-looking, sharp-toothed businessman including James Riady, the president director of Garuda Airlines, Emirsyah Satar, and First Media's Peter Gontha is shaking things up and no doubt pissing off the old guard. Of course they threw the Palace a bone by inexplicably including president neophyte 28-year-old son on the BoD but that's a small price to pay because the big boys will eat him for lunch.
We'll see how long it is before someone buries a knife in his back, but in the meantime, bravo Pak Suryo.
Graft fuels Indonesia's infrastructure woes
By Shirley Wibisono | AFP Dec 12, 2011
When Indonesia's longest suspension bridge suddenly collapsed last month, killing more than 20 people, allegations immediately surfaced that corruption was behind the disaster.
Police have come up with little explanation as to why the 720-metre-long (2,400-foot-long) structure on Borneo island -- built just 10 years ago to resemble San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge -- gave way, sending dozens of vehicles into the river. But they are investigating accusations by the country's corruption-fighting commission and others that the materials used were of poorer quality and cheaper than the construction company claimed.
"The bridge collapse is one example of how quality is being compromised by corruption, where A-grade materials are substituted with lower-grade ones. That's very dangerous," Indonesian Chamber of Commerce chairman Suryo Bambang Sulisto told AFP. "It's common for corruption to happen at all stages in Indonesian infrastructure projects, whether it's during the tender process or extortion along the way."
After the incident, parliament called for an audit of every major bridge in the country, in which East Java province alone found nine on the brink of buckling. As developed countries remain in the economic doldrums, overseas investors have taken a keen interest in Indonesia, with foreign direct investment expected to top $20 billion by the year end.
A wealth of natural resources and a burgeoning middle class that fuels Indonesia's economic expansion, forecast to reach 6.5 percent this year, make the country an attractive prospect. But investors consistently cite corruption as a major deterrent and bemoan the lack of reliable infrastructure, with companies often forced to build their own roads, bridges, railways and ports to do business in the sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands.
Indonesia's 2011-2025 development plan calls for around $440 billion of investment in highways, harbours and power plants, and to tackle crippling traffic in major cities. London-based risk consultancy Business Monitor International (BMI) says high levels of corruption have "severely impeded investment in the country's infrastructure from non-public sources". "Although the Indonesian government is working hard to attract private investors, there is still an underlying threat of corruption and a lack of transparency in the tendering process," a BMI report said.
A World Bank analysis found corruption could add up to 20 percent to the existing costs of projects in Indonesia. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won two elections on promises to tackle graft in one of the most corrupt countries in Asia, but critics say he has failed to make any genuine difference to the culture of graft and impunity. A Gallup poll released in October found that 91 percent of Indonesians believe corruption in government is widespread, compared to 84 percent in 2006.
At a function to mark International Anti-Corruption Day on Friday, Yudhoyono called for action and told law enforcers to go after the big fish.
"We should not make this event a ceremonial thing, but let's use it to reflect and improve our efforts to eradicate corruption in this country, especially during my term," he said, according to his official website. "What we need is action," he said, calling on anti-corruption activists and leaders of NGOs to help eradicate graft.
But corruption is an old and deep-seated problem, said economist Sri Adiningsih from Gadjah Mada University. "Here in Indonesia, it is a common practice for businessmen to bribe officials to get a project," Adiningsih told AFP. "The government have actually placed layers of preventive measures to deal with this problem. However, we are still lacking efforts in law enforcement," she said. "It is very difficult to tackle this widespread practice since the younger civil servants tend to follow the common practice as soon as they are involved in the system."
Indonesia has set up several bodies to tackle graft and the country's corruption ranking has improved slightly to 100 from 110 last year, out of 183 countries, according to a report by Transparency International last week. Poor infrastructure has also elevated distribution costs, so that a 50-kilogram (110-pound) sack of cement which sells for around $9 in Jakarta can cost as much as $130 in the remote and poorly connected eastern Papua region.
"Logistics costs, which normally account for five to six percent of production costs, can eat up between 10 to 15 percent in Indonesia," Indonesian Employers Association chairman Sofjan Wanandi told AFP. "If this goes on, Indonesians will likely start importing more goods instead of producing locally," he added.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Explosive WikiLeaks Cables Nail Yudhoyono
It has taken a while - arrival of twin grinchlettes back in Jan 2010 set back efforts - but this news is too good to keep down.
The funny thing is that while it will no doubt case enormous diplomatic indigestion, no one, and I mean no one, is here is even remotely surprised by any of this.
gt
Explosive WikiLeaks Cables Nail Yudhoyono
Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:20 WIB
US embassy in Jakarta has serious doubts about the Indonesian president's own integrity
When Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won a surprise victory in Indonesia's 2004 presidential elections, the United States Embassy in Jakarta hailed it as "a remarkable triumph of a popular, articulate figure against a rival [incumbent president Megawati Sukarnoputri] with more power, money, and connections."
The former army general and security minister has gone on to win international accolades for strengthening governance, promoting economic reform, and his efforts to suppress the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah.
While visiting Jakarta last November, US President Barack Obama applauded Indonesia's democracy and "the leadership of my good friend President Yudhoyono."
However Yudhoyono's record may have to be reviewed after secret US embassy cables, leaked to WikiLeaks and provided to Fairfax Media, reveal allegations of corruption and abuse of power that extend all the way to the presidential palace.
According to the diplomatic cables, Yudhoyono, widely known by his initials SBY, personally intervened to influence prosecutors and judges to protect corrupt political figures and put pressure on his adversaries. He reportedly also used the Indonesian intelligence service to spy on rivals and, on at least one occasion, a senior minister in his own government.
Yudhoyono's former vice-president reportedly paid out millions of dollars to buy control of Indonesia's largest political party, while the President's wife and her family have allegedly moved to enrich themselves on the basis of their political connections.
The US embassy's political reporting, much of it classified "Secret/NoForn" – meaning for American eyes only — makes clear that the continuing influence of money politics, which extends, despite the President's public commitment to combating corruption, to Yudhoyono himself.
The US embassy cables reveal that one of Yudhoyono's early presidential actions was to personally intervene in the case of Taufik Kiemas, the husband of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri. Taufik reportedly used his continuing control of his wife's Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI-P) to broker protection from prosecution for what the US diplomats described as "legendary corruption during his wife's tenure."
Taufik has been publicly accused, though without charges being laid against him, of improper dealings in massive infrastructure projects heavily tainted with corruption. He is believed to have profited from deals relating to the US$2.3billion Jakarta Outer Ring Road project, the US$2.4 billion double-track railway project from Merak in West Java to Banyuwangi in East Java, the US$2.3billion trans-Kalimantan highway, and the US$1.7 billion trans-Papua highway.
In December 2004, the US embassy in Jakarta reported to Washington that one of its most valued political informants, senior presidential adviser TB Silalahi, had advised that Indonesia's Assistant Attorney-General, Hendarman Supandji, who was then leading the new government's anti-corruption campaign, had gathered "sufficient evidence of the corruption of former first gentleman Taufik Kiemas to warrant Taufik's arrest."
However, Silalahi, one of Yudhoyono's closest political confidants, told the US embassy that the President "had personally instructed Hendarman not to pursue a case against Taufik."
No legal proceedings were brought against the former "first gentleman," who remains an influential political figure and is now Speaker of Indonesia's parliament, the People's Consultative Assembly.
While Yudhoyono protected Taufik from prosecution, his then vice-president, Jusuf Kalla, allegedly paid what the US embassy described as "enormous bribes" to win the chairmanship of Golkar, Indonesia's largest political party, during a December 2004 party congress, US diplomats observed firsthand.
"According to multiple sources close to the major candidates, Kalla's team offered district boards at least Rp200 million (over US$22,000) for their votes," the US embassy reported. "Provincial boards — which had the same voting right, but also could influence subordinate district boards — received Rp500 million or more. According to one contact with prior experience in such matters, board officials received down payments ...and would expect full payment from the winner, in cash, within hours of the vote."
US diplomats reported that, with 243 votes required to win a majority, the Golkar chairmanship would have cost more than US$6million.
"One contact claimed that [then Indonesian House of Representatives chairman Agung Laksono] alone — not the wealthiest of Kalla's backers — had allocated (if not actually spent) Rp50 billion (more than US$5.5 million ) on the event." The US embassy cables further allege that Yudhoyono had then cabinet secretary Sudi Silalahi "intimidate" at least one judge in a 2006 court case arising from a fight for control of former president Abdurahman Wahid's National Awakening Party (PKB). According to the embassy's contacts, Sudi told the judge "if the court were to help [Wahid] it would be like helping to overthrow the government."
The intervention of "SBY's right-hand man" was not successful in a direct sense because, according to embassy sources with close ties to the PKB and lawyers involved in the case, Wahid's supporters paid the judges Rp3 billion in bribes for a verdict that awarded control of PKB to Wahid instead of a dissident faction. However, Yudhoyono's strategic objective was achieved as external pressure on Wahid's "precarious position" forced the PKB to reposition itself to support the administration.
Other US embassy reports indicate that Yudhoyono has used the Indonesian State Intelligence Agency (BIN) to spy on both his political allies and opponents.
The president reportedly also got BIN to spy on rival presidential candidates. This practice appears to have begun while Yudhoyono was serving as co-ordinating minister of political and security affairs in former president Megawati's government. He directed the intelligence service to report on former army commander and Golkar presidential candidate Wiranto. Subsequently, at a meeting of Yudhoyono's cabinet, BIN chief Syamsir characterised Wiranto as a "terrorist mastermind."
Through his own military contacts Wiranto learnt that he was the subject of "derogatory" BIN reports, but when he complained he was told by presidential adviser TB Silalahi that no such reports existed.
The leaked US embassy cables are ambiguous on the question of whether Yudhoyono has been personally engaged in corruption. However, US diplomats reported that at a 2006 meeting with the chairman of his own Democratic Party, Yudhoyono "bemoaned his own failure to date to establish himself in business matters," apparently feeling "he needed to ‘catch up' ... [and] wanted to ensure he left a sizeable legacy for his children."
In the course of investigating the President's private, political and business interests, American diplomats noted alleged links between Yudhoyono and Chinese-Indonesian businessmen, most notably Tomy Winata, an alleged underworld figure and member of the "Gang of Nine" or "Nine Dragons," a leading gambling syndicate.
In 2006, Agung Laksono, now Yudhoyono's Co-ordinating Minister for People's Welfare, told US embassy officers that TB Silalahi "functioned as a middleman, relaying funds from Winata to Yudhoyono, protecting the president from the potential liabilities that could arise if Yudhoyono were to deal with Tomy directly."
Tomy Winata reportedly also used prominent entrepreneur Muhammad Lutfi as a channel of funding to Yudhoyono. Yudhoyono appointed Lutfi chairman of Indonesia's Investment Co-ordinating Board.
Senior State Intelligence Agency official Yahya Asagaf also told the US embassy Tomy Winata was trying to cultivate influence by using a senior presidential aide as his channel to first lady Kristiani Herawati.
Yudhoyono's wife and relatives also feature prominently in the US embassy's political reporting, with American diplomats highlighting the efforts of the president's family "particularly first lady Kristiani Herawati ...to profit financially from its political position."
In June 2006, one presidential staff member told US embassy officers Kristiani's family members were "specifically targeting financial opportunities related to state-owned enterprises." The well-connected staffer portrayed the President as "witting of these efforts, which his closest operators (e.g. Sudi Silalahi) would advance, while Yudhoyono himself maintained sufficient distance that he could not be implicated."
Such is the first lady's behind-the-scenes influence that the US embassy described her as "a cabinet of one" and "the President's undisputed top adviser."
The embassy reported: "As presidential adviser TB Silalahi told [US political officers], members of the President's staff increasingly feel marginalised and powerless to provide counsel to the President."
Yahya Asagaf at the State Intelligence Agency privately declared the first lady's opinion to be "the only one that matters."
Significantly, the US embassy's contacts identified Kristiani as the primary influence behind Yudhoyono's decision to drop vice-president Kalla as his running mate in the 2009 presidential elections.
With Bank of Indonesia governor Boediono as his new vice-presidential running mate, Yudhoyono went on to an overwhelming victory. The President secured more than 60 per cent of the vote, defeating both former president Megawati, who had teamed up with former special forces commander Prabowo Subianto, and vice-president Kalla, who allied himself with Wiranto.
In January 2010 the US embassy observed: "Ten years of political and economic reform have made Indonesia democratic, stable, and increasingly confident about its leadership role in south-east Asia and the Muslim world. Indonesia has held successful, free and fair elections; has weathered the global financial crisis; and is tackling internal security threats."
However, America's diplomats also noted that a series of political scandals through late 2009 and into 2010 had seriously damaged Yudhoyono's political standing.
A protracted conflict between the Indonesian police and the national Corruption Eradication Commission had damaged the government's public anti-corruption credentials, while a parliamentary inquiry into the massive bailout of a major financial institution, Bank Century, called into question the Vice-President's performance as former central bank governor.
One prominent anti-corruption non-government organization privately told the US embassy that it had "credible" information that funds from Bank Century had been used for financing Yudhoyono's re-election campaign.
Former vice-president Kalla strongly criticized the bailout, alleging that the Bank of Indonesia under Boediono had been negligent in supervising Bank Century and arguing that the bank should have been closed as its failure was due to fraud perpetrated by major shareholders.
Against this background the US embassy reported that Yudhoyono was increasingly "paralyzed" as his political popularity rapidly diminished.
"Unwilling to risk alienating segments of the parliament, media, bureaucracy and civil society, Yudhoyono has slowed reforms. He is also unwilling to cross any constituencies ...Until he is satisfied that he has shored up his political position, Yudhoyono is unlikely to spend any political capital to move his reform agenda, or controversial aspects of US -Indonesia relations, forward."
Over the past 13 years Indonesian democracy has undoubtedly strengthened. The Suharto dictatorship has been replaced by a competitive political system characterized by robust debate and free media.
However, as the leaked US embassy's reports show, in what is only a glimpse of the inside workings of President Yudhoyono's tenure, some of the secretive and corrupt habits of the Suharto years still linger in Indonesian presidential politics. (Ach/asiasentinel.com)
The funny thing is that while it will no doubt case enormous diplomatic indigestion, no one, and I mean no one, is here is even remotely surprised by any of this.
gt
Explosive WikiLeaks Cables Nail Yudhoyono
Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:20 WIB
US embassy in Jakarta has serious doubts about the Indonesian president's own integrity
When Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won a surprise victory in Indonesia's 2004 presidential elections, the United States Embassy in Jakarta hailed it as "a remarkable triumph of a popular, articulate figure against a rival [incumbent president Megawati Sukarnoputri] with more power, money, and connections."
The former army general and security minister has gone on to win international accolades for strengthening governance, promoting economic reform, and his efforts to suppress the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah.
While visiting Jakarta last November, US President Barack Obama applauded Indonesia's democracy and "the leadership of my good friend President Yudhoyono."
However Yudhoyono's record may have to be reviewed after secret US embassy cables, leaked to WikiLeaks and provided to Fairfax Media, reveal allegations of corruption and abuse of power that extend all the way to the presidential palace.
According to the diplomatic cables, Yudhoyono, widely known by his initials SBY, personally intervened to influence prosecutors and judges to protect corrupt political figures and put pressure on his adversaries. He reportedly also used the Indonesian intelligence service to spy on rivals and, on at least one occasion, a senior minister in his own government.
Yudhoyono's former vice-president reportedly paid out millions of dollars to buy control of Indonesia's largest political party, while the President's wife and her family have allegedly moved to enrich themselves on the basis of their political connections.
The US embassy's political reporting, much of it classified "Secret/NoForn" – meaning for American eyes only — makes clear that the continuing influence of money politics, which extends, despite the President's public commitment to combating corruption, to Yudhoyono himself.
The US embassy cables reveal that one of Yudhoyono's early presidential actions was to personally intervene in the case of Taufik Kiemas, the husband of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri. Taufik reportedly used his continuing control of his wife's Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI-P) to broker protection from prosecution for what the US diplomats described as "legendary corruption during his wife's tenure."
Taufik has been publicly accused, though without charges being laid against him, of improper dealings in massive infrastructure projects heavily tainted with corruption. He is believed to have profited from deals relating to the US$2.3billion Jakarta Outer Ring Road project, the US$2.4 billion double-track railway project from Merak in West Java to Banyuwangi in East Java, the US$2.3billion trans-Kalimantan highway, and the US$1.7 billion trans-Papua highway.
In December 2004, the US embassy in Jakarta reported to Washington that one of its most valued political informants, senior presidential adviser TB Silalahi, had advised that Indonesia's Assistant Attorney-General, Hendarman Supandji, who was then leading the new government's anti-corruption campaign, had gathered "sufficient evidence of the corruption of former first gentleman Taufik Kiemas to warrant Taufik's arrest."
However, Silalahi, one of Yudhoyono's closest political confidants, told the US embassy that the President "had personally instructed Hendarman not to pursue a case against Taufik."
No legal proceedings were brought against the former "first gentleman," who remains an influential political figure and is now Speaker of Indonesia's parliament, the People's Consultative Assembly.
While Yudhoyono protected Taufik from prosecution, his then vice-president, Jusuf Kalla, allegedly paid what the US embassy described as "enormous bribes" to win the chairmanship of Golkar, Indonesia's largest political party, during a December 2004 party congress, US diplomats observed firsthand.
"According to multiple sources close to the major candidates, Kalla's team offered district boards at least Rp200 million (over US$22,000) for their votes," the US embassy reported. "Provincial boards — which had the same voting right, but also could influence subordinate district boards — received Rp500 million or more. According to one contact with prior experience in such matters, board officials received down payments ...and would expect full payment from the winner, in cash, within hours of the vote."
US diplomats reported that, with 243 votes required to win a majority, the Golkar chairmanship would have cost more than US$6million.
"One contact claimed that [then Indonesian House of Representatives chairman Agung Laksono] alone — not the wealthiest of Kalla's backers — had allocated (if not actually spent) Rp50 billion (more than US$5.5 million ) on the event." The US embassy cables further allege that Yudhoyono had then cabinet secretary Sudi Silalahi "intimidate" at least one judge in a 2006 court case arising from a fight for control of former president Abdurahman Wahid's National Awakening Party (PKB). According to the embassy's contacts, Sudi told the judge "if the court were to help [Wahid] it would be like helping to overthrow the government."
The intervention of "SBY's right-hand man" was not successful in a direct sense because, according to embassy sources with close ties to the PKB and lawyers involved in the case, Wahid's supporters paid the judges Rp3 billion in bribes for a verdict that awarded control of PKB to Wahid instead of a dissident faction. However, Yudhoyono's strategic objective was achieved as external pressure on Wahid's "precarious position" forced the PKB to reposition itself to support the administration.
Other US embassy reports indicate that Yudhoyono has used the Indonesian State Intelligence Agency (BIN) to spy on both his political allies and opponents.
The president reportedly also got BIN to spy on rival presidential candidates. This practice appears to have begun while Yudhoyono was serving as co-ordinating minister of political and security affairs in former president Megawati's government. He directed the intelligence service to report on former army commander and Golkar presidential candidate Wiranto. Subsequently, at a meeting of Yudhoyono's cabinet, BIN chief Syamsir characterised Wiranto as a "terrorist mastermind."
Through his own military contacts Wiranto learnt that he was the subject of "derogatory" BIN reports, but when he complained he was told by presidential adviser TB Silalahi that no such reports existed.
The leaked US embassy cables are ambiguous on the question of whether Yudhoyono has been personally engaged in corruption. However, US diplomats reported that at a 2006 meeting with the chairman of his own Democratic Party, Yudhoyono "bemoaned his own failure to date to establish himself in business matters," apparently feeling "he needed to ‘catch up' ... [and] wanted to ensure he left a sizeable legacy for his children."
In the course of investigating the President's private, political and business interests, American diplomats noted alleged links between Yudhoyono and Chinese-Indonesian businessmen, most notably Tomy Winata, an alleged underworld figure and member of the "Gang of Nine" or "Nine Dragons," a leading gambling syndicate.
In 2006, Agung Laksono, now Yudhoyono's Co-ordinating Minister for People's Welfare, told US embassy officers that TB Silalahi "functioned as a middleman, relaying funds from Winata to Yudhoyono, protecting the president from the potential liabilities that could arise if Yudhoyono were to deal with Tomy directly."
Tomy Winata reportedly also used prominent entrepreneur Muhammad Lutfi as a channel of funding to Yudhoyono. Yudhoyono appointed Lutfi chairman of Indonesia's Investment Co-ordinating Board.
Senior State Intelligence Agency official Yahya Asagaf also told the US embassy Tomy Winata was trying to cultivate influence by using a senior presidential aide as his channel to first lady Kristiani Herawati.
Yudhoyono's wife and relatives also feature prominently in the US embassy's political reporting, with American diplomats highlighting the efforts of the president's family "particularly first lady Kristiani Herawati ...to profit financially from its political position."
In June 2006, one presidential staff member told US embassy officers Kristiani's family members were "specifically targeting financial opportunities related to state-owned enterprises." The well-connected staffer portrayed the President as "witting of these efforts, which his closest operators (e.g. Sudi Silalahi) would advance, while Yudhoyono himself maintained sufficient distance that he could not be implicated."
Such is the first lady's behind-the-scenes influence that the US embassy described her as "a cabinet of one" and "the President's undisputed top adviser."
The embassy reported: "As presidential adviser TB Silalahi told [US political officers], members of the President's staff increasingly feel marginalised and powerless to provide counsel to the President."
Yahya Asagaf at the State Intelligence Agency privately declared the first lady's opinion to be "the only one that matters."
Significantly, the US embassy's contacts identified Kristiani as the primary influence behind Yudhoyono's decision to drop vice-president Kalla as his running mate in the 2009 presidential elections.
With Bank of Indonesia governor Boediono as his new vice-presidential running mate, Yudhoyono went on to an overwhelming victory. The President secured more than 60 per cent of the vote, defeating both former president Megawati, who had teamed up with former special forces commander Prabowo Subianto, and vice-president Kalla, who allied himself with Wiranto.
In January 2010 the US embassy observed: "Ten years of political and economic reform have made Indonesia democratic, stable, and increasingly confident about its leadership role in south-east Asia and the Muslim world. Indonesia has held successful, free and fair elections; has weathered the global financial crisis; and is tackling internal security threats."
However, America's diplomats also noted that a series of political scandals through late 2009 and into 2010 had seriously damaged Yudhoyono's political standing.
A protracted conflict between the Indonesian police and the national Corruption Eradication Commission had damaged the government's public anti-corruption credentials, while a parliamentary inquiry into the massive bailout of a major financial institution, Bank Century, called into question the Vice-President's performance as former central bank governor.
One prominent anti-corruption non-government organization privately told the US embassy that it had "credible" information that funds from Bank Century had been used for financing Yudhoyono's re-election campaign.
Former vice-president Kalla strongly criticized the bailout, alleging that the Bank of Indonesia under Boediono had been negligent in supervising Bank Century and arguing that the bank should have been closed as its failure was due to fraud perpetrated by major shareholders.
Against this background the US embassy reported that Yudhoyono was increasingly "paralyzed" as his political popularity rapidly diminished.
"Unwilling to risk alienating segments of the parliament, media, bureaucracy and civil society, Yudhoyono has slowed reforms. He is also unwilling to cross any constituencies ...Until he is satisfied that he has shored up his political position, Yudhoyono is unlikely to spend any political capital to move his reform agenda, or controversial aspects of US -Indonesia relations, forward."
Over the past 13 years Indonesian democracy has undoubtedly strengthened. The Suharto dictatorship has been replaced by a competitive political system characterized by robust debate and free media.
However, as the leaked US embassy's reports show, in what is only a glimpse of the inside workings of President Yudhoyono's tenure, some of the secretive and corrupt habits of the Suharto years still linger in Indonesian presidential politics. (Ach/asiasentinel.com)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Papa’s Rollin’ Stone Gathers No Political Joss
One of the weirder recent newsy bits that slipped beneath the radar was the midnight relocation last week of the gravestone of Indonesia’s first president Soekarno and what it says about the declining political fortunes of his puddin’ daughter.
Jakarta Post gave it a couple of inches. I’ve not found any other references in the Indonesian media or blogosphere tho I’m sure there’s more out there.
Story goes that the two-ton slab of rock – which looks like a meteor but I can’t confirm - marking his grave in Blitar, East Java, was pushed one meter to the north by a posse armed with permits, shovels and four 5-ton jacks. Word is the move was executed at daughter Megawati (Mega) Sukarnoputri’s orders, supervised by her son and witnessed by a member of her political party PDI-P (Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle).
Before I suggest the likely motive behind the rolling stone, one admission: I reckon there’s a special place in hell reserved for people like Mega. The fact she has never bothered to reach out to the families of the party activists murdered by security forces in front of her Jakarta office in 1996 – “I never asked them to support me…” – tells you everything you need to know about her character. I also watched her physically jerk away from terrified Madurese during her six-minute visit to the camps where they were living during the worst of the Kalimantan/Sampit headhunter riots. Only weeks of retail therapy in Singapore allowed her to recover from the trauma of a poor, ‘unclean’ person having the gall to actually make contact with her. She’s a sham, a parody of the courageous woman who stood up to Suharto in the 90s.
There is little doubt that Mega’s orders regarding Daddy’s tombstone were inspired by her regular consultations with her spiritual advisors and astrologers who likely suggested the slab’s positioning as lacking the necessary JavaVoodoo-meets-Feng Sui to cement her political fortunes. As for why it was done at this specific moment in time, I’ll posit the following.
PDI-P are in crisis as they enter their three-day national congress in Bali this week. What was once the populist choice of the people, whose tides of supporters turned the streets of the country’s major cities the party’s red-and-black back in the day, is a national disgrace. Under Mega’s stewardship – including a desultory three-year as president – PDI-P has imploded. Gone are any vestiges of the neo-people’s power vibe it carried through Suharto’s decline and disgrace, pimped off by the party brass to a new old guard of powerful businessmen lead by her husband, Taufik Kemas.
Despite Mega Inc.’s efforts to cement the family fortunes by pushing forth her daughter as the logical next leader, this is a ‘dynasty’ in collapse.
Observers expect Mega to be re-elected party chairman but it is clear to all but the most brainwashed of supporters that her aura is greatly diminished. PDI-P has been pummeled in the past two national elections, watching its share of the popular vote plunge from 34% in 1999, to 20% in 2004 and 14% in 2009. Mega was soundly beaten (60/40) in the run-off presidential elections in 2004. Her personal popularity was further tested last year when incumbent President Waffle took almost two-thirds of the ballots cast to Mega’s 28%, obviating the need for the presidential run-off.
At the provincial level, PDI-P saw its locked-up East Java gubernatorial race (pop 40 million) stolen through a combination of ballot-stuffing and graft and their power greatly diminished in other regional and local elections.
Various members of the clan – don’t even get me started on the bed-hopping in this family - have defected to other parties, and/or challenge her for the leadership of a party she claims as a birthright. More importantly, dozens of current and former national legislators have found themselves caught up in recent scandals, ranging from the auctioning off of the deputy governorship of the national bank to the collapse of Bank Century.
The party will not toss off Mega this week and tack back towards a serious challenge to the Democrats and a successor to President Waffle (TBA at a later date). With the dynasty as stake, she’ll need all the mojo she can muster to position the 3rd generation of the family as the ‘natural’ choice for the future of PDI-P, and thus the reason for last weeks’ dead-of-night kejawen moment in rural East Java.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Poop, Boob-radar and Furry Babies: Pearls of Wisdom From a New Dad (Part I)
This is the day the Grinchlettes were scheduled to arrive. Clever buggers, they decided to roll up in the middle of Letterman seven weeks early. Here’s what I’ve gleaned about the process and child-rearing thus far:
* Babies don’t totally suck (though I’m still unclear as to their actual function).
* Childbirth is not as gory as you might think, though the furry black pelt covering their bodies is a bit of a surprise (even for a Grinch).
* Cesarean deliveries are the new “normal”. The missus’ unassisted ‘natural’ delivery of was met with shock and awe.
* Telling a new mum whose 30-hour labor ended in a C-Section that that you delivered twins naturally three hours after your first contraction is an unnecessary infliction of psychic pain.
* Five weeks in an incubator does not guarantee your pre-term newborn healthy skin color. Consuming your own body weight every 72 hours on the other hand…
* In a corollary to “Every Sperm is Sacred”, there exists an astonishing variety of different types, consistencies, hues and densities of poop, and each is fascinating in its own special way.
* Diaper technology has come a long way in the 30 years since I last tried to wrap a worming infant.
* We Grinch seem to have a built-in mechanism to prevent us from rolling over and crushing our spawn while we sleep.
* The first thing grinchlette will grab in his/her greedy little fists is chest fur, followed by the goatee (and later, glasses).
* Most girl children eventually lose the hardwired “boob-dar” that allows them to track the location, vector, speed and size of breasts with an accuracy that is the envy of NASA. Boys refine it over a lifetime and bring it to the grave.
* Rookie parents who wish to entertain friends with toddlers and young children should tell ‘em all about their “plans for the feeding schedule…”
* Movies featuring zombies, vampires and murderous angels are all popular with the after-midnight nursing set. The same cannot be said for CSI, further proof that one does not need a fully functioning frontal lobe to wish “actor” David Caruso ill.
* People you do not know will tell you what is best for your child. Other new parents will applaud the judicious use of Tasers, mace and 2x4s in such circumstances.
* The selection of suitable strollers is (or ought to be) a ‘guy thing’.
* A 2G memory card is not enough space to contain a week’s worth of photos of your spawn.
* Having twins means there will always be a squabble about who gets to wear the “I’m With Stoopid” t-shirt.
* Despite their many obvious flaws, females kinda rock.
* Babies don’t totally suck (though I’m still unclear as to their actual function).
* Childbirth is not as gory as you might think, though the furry black pelt covering their bodies is a bit of a surprise (even for a Grinch).
* Cesarean deliveries are the new “normal”. The missus’ unassisted ‘natural’ delivery of was met with shock and awe.
* Telling a new mum whose 30-hour labor ended in a C-Section that that you delivered twins naturally three hours after your first contraction is an unnecessary infliction of psychic pain.
* Five weeks in an incubator does not guarantee your pre-term newborn healthy skin color. Consuming your own body weight every 72 hours on the other hand…
* In a corollary to “Every Sperm is Sacred”, there exists an astonishing variety of different types, consistencies, hues and densities of poop, and each is fascinating in its own special way.
* Diaper technology has come a long way in the 30 years since I last tried to wrap a worming infant.
* We Grinch seem to have a built-in mechanism to prevent us from rolling over and crushing our spawn while we sleep.
* The first thing grinchlette will grab in his/her greedy little fists is chest fur, followed by the goatee (and later, glasses).
* Most girl children eventually lose the hardwired “boob-dar” that allows them to track the location, vector, speed and size of breasts with an accuracy that is the envy of NASA. Boys refine it over a lifetime and bring it to the grave.
* Rookie parents who wish to entertain friends with toddlers and young children should tell ‘em all about their “plans for the feeding schedule…”
* Movies featuring zombies, vampires and murderous angels are all popular with the after-midnight nursing set. The same cannot be said for CSI, further proof that one does not need a fully functioning frontal lobe to wish “actor” David Caruso ill.
* People you do not know will tell you what is best for your child. Other new parents will applaud the judicious use of Tasers, mace and 2x4s in such circumstances.
* The selection of suitable strollers is (or ought to be) a ‘guy thing’.
* A 2G memory card is not enough space to contain a week’s worth of photos of your spawn.
* Having twins means there will always be a squabble about who gets to wear the “I’m With Stoopid” t-shirt.
* Despite their many obvious flaws, females kinda rock.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Trouble with Tigers, the MinTwit strikes again, and a $50,000 Booty Bounty
News Item 1:
Minister proposes giving endangered Sumatran tigers to “rich people” as a conservation measure.
News Item 2:
SBY bitch-slaps (Javanese style) proto-Taliban MinTwit for proposed Internet control measures
News Item 3: Religious Affairs pimps want $50,000 down payment for RI brides
A couple of days after the vice-president declared Jan 22 the national day for wildlife conservation, the Ministry of Deforestation floated the idea of ‘renting’ critically endangered Sumatran tigers to rich folk as a serious governmental conservation effort.
For a mere one billion Rupiah ($110,000), and with the understanding that there’s ample space and food, well-heeled Indonesians will be allowed to ‘adopt’ a tiger of their very own, (though it would remain the ‘property’ of the state).
The deforestation ministry’s chief of nature conservation was widely quoted saying “There is much demand from rich people who want them, who feel that if they own a tiger they are big shots. We have to take concrete steps to protect these animals.”
Stroke of genius: get rid of all those pesky carnivores so we can pave Sumatra with oil plantations! Presumably they’ll come up with some brilliant new idea to deal with the populations of Sumatran elephants, rhinos and orangutan once the loggers manage to buy their way into the Leuser ecosystem for real.
In an effort to control the ensuring shitstorm of protest from the NGO set that obviously doesn’t care about tigers – there’s something like 400-500 of them left – and don’t understand their needs and aspirations (ya know, WWF, Greenpeace etc), the loggers, (oops, I mean ministerial tree huggers) busted a couple of Jakarta suits operating their own personal conservatories. A total of three adult tigers and six yoots were seized in two raids, along with all manner of endangered birds, mammals and, it is rumored, Gary Coleman.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say our favorite kneecapper Tommy W is behind this. TW crept out of his lair long enough recently to bankroll the release of two tigers in Lampung. If you’ve seen his house, or those of his henchmen (darn, I mean, business associates) y’know he’s gonna have a full on chubby for his personal collection of tigers, hawks and komodo dragons. Further research will be required on this one…
President Waffle took time out of his busy schedule having knives removed from his back to publicly roasted Minister of Twits Tifatul Sembiring this week for the colossal clusterfuck that is his ministry.
The issue this time ‘round was the recently released draft of a bill from the Communication and Info Tech ministry that will create an internet death panel empowered to order service provides to prohibit access to websites it deems offensive. It will also require internet providers to monitor all content, and hold them legally responsible should “offensive” or “illegal” material arrive on the desktops of impressionable Indonesian citizens.
MinTwit was swanning about Europe when the draft was released. Rather than wait for him to return to take his punishment like a man, SBY, in true Javanese fashion, noted that ministers really ought to submit draft bills to the palace before floating them to the public. He mentioned no names….
“I hope ministers do not come up with too-early statements… that could create the wrong perception in the public,” the prez was quoted as saying. “I want to remind all cabinet members that if there are thoughts or intentions to prepare a government regulation or bills, [you are] obliged to report it to the president through the cabinet secretary or state secretary”.
For those unfamiliar with the niceties of Javanese diplomacy, that was a public bitch-slap.
While MinTwit Sembiring was not personally responsible for this idiotic idea (step right this way, Sofyan Djalil!) it dovetails nicely with the Taliban-Lite world views he espoused as head of the PKS: after all, you should be in the mosque, not pulling your pud watching Cinta Laura videos on YouTube.
This is the latest half-baked idea to emerge from MinTwit’s entourage (see past posts ad nauseum), that included: his personal intervention several months back to sever internet access for all First Media subscribers in Indonesia, blaming earthquake/tsunamis on immoral behavior, and efforts to geld the country’s anti-corruption ninjas by requiring they submit wire tap requests for judicial review.
Indonesia has not been blessed with particularly wise or thoughtful religious affairs ministers over the past decade, and the new guy, Suryadharma Ali, seems intent on further lowering bar.
The latest offering, contained a draft marriage bill, is the proposal that would require foreign men to deposit Rp 500,000,000 ($55,000) in a Sharia bank account if they intend to marry an Indonesian woman. The intent of the down payment contained in Article 142 appears to be to prevent horny Arabs with a taste for unregistered temporary Islamic marriages (known as nika sirih) from leaving their local lady destitute when he decides to swap her for a younger model, (or reverts to type and shacks up with some doe-eyed four-legged beauty).
The bill contains several other ill-conceived ideas to address nika sirih that the ministry’s DG for Islamic guidance expects to present to the Cabinet secretary. Amidst all the howls of protest, the analysis from the NU’s women’s organization resonated loudest in my mind. Besides sounding like the ministry is pimping out the nation’s treasures, they asked, ‘who decided we are only worth Rp. 500 million?”
Brilliant!
Unmentioned in the bill is that these booty bounty provisions will only apply to Muslims marrying Muslims, so presumably kafir are more reliable in these matters.
Observers will recall that Indonesia’s past religious Kahunas include Indiana Jones wannabe Said Agil Al Munawar, who responded to a vision from his personal dukun, by attempting to excavate a grave in the dead of night in search of billions of dollars worth of Sukarno’s gold, and was subsequently sentenced to five-years in jail for fraud. He, as others before and since have sold their souls for Saudi dollars (funding construction of their swish new headquarters by some accounts) while enriching themselves, their staff and their political parties at the expense of true believers by jacking the costs of state-organized Haj pilgrimages.
Minister proposes giving endangered Sumatran tigers to “rich people” as a conservation measure.
News Item 2:
SBY bitch-slaps (Javanese style) proto-Taliban MinTwit for proposed Internet control measures
News Item 3: Religious Affairs pimps want $50,000 down payment for RI brides
A couple of days after the vice-president declared Jan 22 the national day for wildlife conservation, the Ministry of Deforestation floated the idea of ‘renting’ critically endangered Sumatran tigers to rich folk as a serious governmental conservation effort.
For a mere one billion Rupiah ($110,000), and with the understanding that there’s ample space and food, well-heeled Indonesians will be allowed to ‘adopt’ a tiger of their very own, (though it would remain the ‘property’ of the state).
The deforestation ministry’s chief of nature conservation was widely quoted saying “There is much demand from rich people who want them, who feel that if they own a tiger they are big shots. We have to take concrete steps to protect these animals.”
Stroke of genius: get rid of all those pesky carnivores so we can pave Sumatra with oil plantations! Presumably they’ll come up with some brilliant new idea to deal with the populations of Sumatran elephants, rhinos and orangutan once the loggers manage to buy their way into the Leuser ecosystem for real.
In an effort to control the ensuring shitstorm of protest from the NGO set that obviously doesn’t care about tigers – there’s something like 400-500 of them left – and don’t understand their needs and aspirations (ya know, WWF, Greenpeace etc), the loggers, (oops, I mean ministerial tree huggers) busted a couple of Jakarta suits operating their own personal conservatories. A total of three adult tigers and six yoots were seized in two raids, along with all manner of endangered birds, mammals and, it is rumored, Gary Coleman.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say our favorite kneecapper Tommy W is behind this. TW crept out of his lair long enough recently to bankroll the release of two tigers in Lampung. If you’ve seen his house, or those of his henchmen (darn, I mean, business associates) y’know he’s gonna have a full on chubby for his personal collection of tigers, hawks and komodo dragons. Further research will be required on this one…
President Waffle took time out of his busy schedule having knives removed from his back to publicly roasted Minister of Twits Tifatul Sembiring this week for the colossal clusterfuck that is his ministry.
The issue this time ‘round was the recently released draft of a bill from the Communication and Info Tech ministry that will create an internet death panel empowered to order service provides to prohibit access to websites it deems offensive. It will also require internet providers to monitor all content, and hold them legally responsible should “offensive” or “illegal” material arrive on the desktops of impressionable Indonesian citizens.
MinTwit was swanning about Europe when the draft was released. Rather than wait for him to return to take his punishment like a man, SBY, in true Javanese fashion, noted that ministers really ought to submit draft bills to the palace before floating them to the public. He mentioned no names….
“I hope ministers do not come up with too-early statements… that could create the wrong perception in the public,” the prez was quoted as saying. “I want to remind all cabinet members that if there are thoughts or intentions to prepare a government regulation or bills, [you are] obliged to report it to the president through the cabinet secretary or state secretary”.
For those unfamiliar with the niceties of Javanese diplomacy, that was a public bitch-slap.
While MinTwit Sembiring was not personally responsible for this idiotic idea (step right this way, Sofyan Djalil!) it dovetails nicely with the Taliban-Lite world views he espoused as head of the PKS: after all, you should be in the mosque, not pulling your pud watching Cinta Laura videos on YouTube.
This is the latest half-baked idea to emerge from MinTwit’s entourage (see past posts ad nauseum), that included: his personal intervention several months back to sever internet access for all First Media subscribers in Indonesia, blaming earthquake/tsunamis on immoral behavior, and efforts to geld the country’s anti-corruption ninjas by requiring they submit wire tap requests for judicial review.
Indonesia has not been blessed with particularly wise or thoughtful religious affairs ministers over the past decade, and the new guy, Suryadharma Ali, seems intent on further lowering bar.
The latest offering, contained a draft marriage bill, is the proposal that would require foreign men to deposit Rp 500,000,000 ($55,000) in a Sharia bank account if they intend to marry an Indonesian woman. The intent of the down payment contained in Article 142 appears to be to prevent horny Arabs with a taste for unregistered temporary Islamic marriages (known as nika sirih) from leaving their local lady destitute when he decides to swap her for a younger model, (or reverts to type and shacks up with some doe-eyed four-legged beauty).
The bill contains several other ill-conceived ideas to address nika sirih that the ministry’s DG for Islamic guidance expects to present to the Cabinet secretary. Amidst all the howls of protest, the analysis from the NU’s women’s organization resonated loudest in my mind. Besides sounding like the ministry is pimping out the nation’s treasures, they asked, ‘who decided we are only worth Rp. 500 million?”
Brilliant!
Unmentioned in the bill is that these booty bounty provisions will only apply to Muslims marrying Muslims, so presumably kafir are more reliable in these matters.
Observers will recall that Indonesia’s past religious Kahunas include Indiana Jones wannabe Said Agil Al Munawar, who responded to a vision from his personal dukun, by attempting to excavate a grave in the dead of night in search of billions of dollars worth of Sukarno’s gold, and was subsequently sentenced to five-years in jail for fraud. He, as others before and since have sold their souls for Saudi dollars (funding construction of their swish new headquarters by some accounts) while enriching themselves, their staff and their political parties at the expense of true believers by jacking the costs of state-organized Haj pilgrimages.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Enough Demo(cracy): Time to Split Some Heads
Jakartans are daily witnessing the application of the old adage about too much democracy being a bad thing.
At the risk of lining up behind Mahathir Mohammed and Lee Kuan Yew whose distain for the practical application of democratic principles is eloquent and well documented, I long for the days when a phalanx of club-wielding Brimob stormtroopers could be relied up to clear rabble from the streets of the capitol.
Alas, with the very rare exception, the days of the legitimate act of mass demonstration or the use of street power to effect change in Indonesia are past. The last true manifestation of this was the elections of 1999 when the main thoroughfares of the country’s population centers vanished beneath a sea of red and black t-shirted supporters of HRH Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Beyond the on-going reformation of modern day Indonesia, there were two street-level consequences of these demos.
The first is that the security forces were forced to step back from the traditional iron fist/smoking barrel approach to crowd control. The clearest manifestation has been in police response to demonstrations in Jakarta. Lead-cored batons, shields and tear gas have been replaced by rows of unarmed shovel-faced female cops (PolWan) in fuchsia lipstick linking arms in front of the rows of the riot cops. It defuses the situation remarkably well, though whether it’s because the mob fears these PolWan as much as I do (gimme a fat cracker Javanese cop anyday), or the humor value, is a mystery to me.
The second consequence is that the shadowy forces that bankrolled and coordinated the demonstrations the ultimately forced Suharto to resign in 1998 – imagine the logistics of supplying food, drink, transportation and cigarettes to 250,000 people on the streets of the capitol for days on end – learned they could affect change by harnessing street power. Many individuals were beaten; some died. But the political calculus of the day declared this an acceptable butcher’s bill.
No longer fearing the cops and intelligence agencies, the nation’s business and political elite have been allowed to refine the use of paid demonstrations to push narrow partisan political causes. Demonstrations now are purely cynical affairs. Powerful people pay for organizers to disgorge the ignorant poor from buses in front of the target of the day. Lead by bullhorns and carrying banners they can’t read, they regularly bring the city to a standstill for the equivalent of $2/head and a boxed lunch.
So in-grained is this demo-in-a-box approach that when Aceh-born media magnate Surya Paloh and the poor, deluded, Sultan of Yogya decided they were going to launch a ‘mass organization’ last month they put 25,000 paid butts in the seats of Bung Karno stadium to provide the applause.
As much as it galls me to admit, the rare exception to the current rule comes from fundamentalist elements of Islamic society who have rallied their members to the street around a specific issue. Through 2008 and 2009, thousands of white-clad wannabes in Taliban short-pants and scraggly beards aligned with the vile Indonesian arm of Hizbut Tahrir, joined the gangster bagmen-turned-preachers of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and other hateful, church-and mosque burning constituencies associated with the Indonesian Ulema’s Council in well choreographed shows of force before the presidential palace to demand the clocks be turned back the 6th century.
You may not like it, and their access should be restricted to minimize the impact on city residents, but at least they come with a set of principles, racist, misogynist and violent as they may be. Nothing illegal in having an opinion. If they break the law, then the police should drive those Droogies into the pavement. Otherwise let ‘em holler and “allahuakbar” at an indifferent population and empty buildinga till the cows come home.
More typical are the bogus demonstrations that have been going on in front of the KPK offices for the past six weeks. Like tens of thousands of others, I’ve suffered through the interminable traffic delays caused when 45 gormless kampung nut-scratchers in masks bring eight lanes of traffic to a halt for hours at a time. They’ve no idea why they’re there except that something called “Bank Century” is “corrupt” and some woman (a politically naïve finance minister who dares to stare down powerful business interests) is “Satan”.
Well, enough is enough. It is time for Jakarta Governor Fuzzy Bobo to take off the gloves, crush these cockroaches, publicly name and prosecute the organizers, and demand they remunerate everyone inconvenienced by their actions. He can start by rejecting any application for a demonstration permit with the slightest hint of being a paid-for event. Civil society has already attacked him for suggesting changes to the current free-for-all, blathering on about “freedom of expression” and “human rights” etc. Bull. Democracy and human rights do not trump the rights of tens of thousands of commuters, office workers and ordinary folks who just wanna get to work on time or home at the end of a long day. This is street theatre, not 'democracy', and should be confined to the stage (or as Bobo suggested, the park surrounding the National Monument, Monas).
Meantime, ladies, wipe off the lipstick, pick up a truncheon and start beating out a path.
Postscript:
On March 4, the Jakarta Globe published the following story about rent-a-demo:
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/national/jakarta-protesters-unite-show-us-the-money-and-food/361715
At the risk of lining up behind Mahathir Mohammed and Lee Kuan Yew whose distain for the practical application of democratic principles is eloquent and well documented, I long for the days when a phalanx of club-wielding Brimob stormtroopers could be relied up to clear rabble from the streets of the capitol.
Alas, with the very rare exception, the days of the legitimate act of mass demonstration or the use of street power to effect change in Indonesia are past. The last true manifestation of this was the elections of 1999 when the main thoroughfares of the country’s population centers vanished beneath a sea of red and black t-shirted supporters of HRH Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Beyond the on-going reformation of modern day Indonesia, there were two street-level consequences of these demos.
The first is that the security forces were forced to step back from the traditional iron fist/smoking barrel approach to crowd control. The clearest manifestation has been in police response to demonstrations in Jakarta. Lead-cored batons, shields and tear gas have been replaced by rows of unarmed shovel-faced female cops (PolWan) in fuchsia lipstick linking arms in front of the rows of the riot cops. It defuses the situation remarkably well, though whether it’s because the mob fears these PolWan as much as I do (gimme a fat cracker Javanese cop anyday), or the humor value, is a mystery to me.
The second consequence is that the shadowy forces that bankrolled and coordinated the demonstrations the ultimately forced Suharto to resign in 1998 – imagine the logistics of supplying food, drink, transportation and cigarettes to 250,000 people on the streets of the capitol for days on end – learned they could affect change by harnessing street power. Many individuals were beaten; some died. But the political calculus of the day declared this an acceptable butcher’s bill.
No longer fearing the cops and intelligence agencies, the nation’s business and political elite have been allowed to refine the use of paid demonstrations to push narrow partisan political causes. Demonstrations now are purely cynical affairs. Powerful people pay for organizers to disgorge the ignorant poor from buses in front of the target of the day. Lead by bullhorns and carrying banners they can’t read, they regularly bring the city to a standstill for the equivalent of $2/head and a boxed lunch.
So in-grained is this demo-in-a-box approach that when Aceh-born media magnate Surya Paloh and the poor, deluded, Sultan of Yogya decided they were going to launch a ‘mass organization’ last month they put 25,000 paid butts in the seats of Bung Karno stadium to provide the applause.
As much as it galls me to admit, the rare exception to the current rule comes from fundamentalist elements of Islamic society who have rallied their members to the street around a specific issue. Through 2008 and 2009, thousands of white-clad wannabes in Taliban short-pants and scraggly beards aligned with the vile Indonesian arm of Hizbut Tahrir, joined the gangster bagmen-turned-preachers of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and other hateful, church-and mosque burning constituencies associated with the Indonesian Ulema’s Council in well choreographed shows of force before the presidential palace to demand the clocks be turned back the 6th century.
You may not like it, and their access should be restricted to minimize the impact on city residents, but at least they come with a set of principles, racist, misogynist and violent as they may be. Nothing illegal in having an opinion. If they break the law, then the police should drive those Droogies into the pavement. Otherwise let ‘em holler and “allahuakbar” at an indifferent population and empty buildinga till the cows come home.
More typical are the bogus demonstrations that have been going on in front of the KPK offices for the past six weeks. Like tens of thousands of others, I’ve suffered through the interminable traffic delays caused when 45 gormless kampung nut-scratchers in masks bring eight lanes of traffic to a halt for hours at a time. They’ve no idea why they’re there except that something called “Bank Century” is “corrupt” and some woman (a politically naïve finance minister who dares to stare down powerful business interests) is “Satan”.
Well, enough is enough. It is time for Jakarta Governor Fuzzy Bobo to take off the gloves, crush these cockroaches, publicly name and prosecute the organizers, and demand they remunerate everyone inconvenienced by their actions. He can start by rejecting any application for a demonstration permit with the slightest hint of being a paid-for event. Civil society has already attacked him for suggesting changes to the current free-for-all, blathering on about “freedom of expression” and “human rights” etc. Bull. Democracy and human rights do not trump the rights of tens of thousands of commuters, office workers and ordinary folks who just wanna get to work on time or home at the end of a long day. This is street theatre, not 'democracy', and should be confined to the stage (or as Bobo suggested, the park surrounding the National Monument, Monas).
Meantime, ladies, wipe off the lipstick, pick up a truncheon and start beating out a path.
Postscript:
On March 4, the Jakarta Globe published the following story about rent-a-demo:
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/national/jakarta-protesters-unite-show-us-the-money-and-food/361715
Monday, February 01, 2010
Garuda Pancasila, Armani Love Child Horror
Much whingeing and harrumphing this week when some bright bulb got it into his head that Armani, yes that Armani, was pissing on the glorious Republic of Indonesia because one of their t-shirts bears a logo passing similar to the Garuda/eagle icon that serves as the coat of arms attached to the declaration of national principles known as Pancasila (itself a subject for another day).
Leading national daily Kompas directed the government to sue, the now ubiquitous Facebook site petition was created and rather telling the mob of drooling nationalist slap-heads to get a life, Justice Minister Patrialis Akbar waded in claiming possible copyright infringements.
Which is a funny thing for the top lawman to say because if anyone is cruising for a legal bruising it would seem to be the artists that created Indonesia's coat of arms in the first place.
Why they didn’t settle on an image of Vishu’s kick-ass winged chimera in the first place is a bit of a mystery. Instead, the official story is that the Pancasila image was inspired by the Javan hawk, one of the rarest birds on earth according to the Malaysia-based TRAFFIC, a wildlife group that monitors the trade in wild plants and animals. As far as I can tell, the RI Garuda resembles that noble raptor about as much as my hairy green behind. But if one were to troll through the ranks of heraldry one might conclude that the image is the unnatural product of a drunken coupling between a two-headed Russian eagle and Moldovan canary.
The (s)wanky Dago tailors apologized to any offence caused, yanked the t-shirt from the website and everyone has gone back to sleep. But I for one am waiting for Reds to sue RI for stealing their Imperial eagle's love child.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Grinch Population Increases by Two
Your Grinch is somewhat less grumpy that usual this week due to the arrival of his first pups, a male and a female, who emerged into the harsh light of day seven weeks earlier than expected on January 14.
In the manner of their species, they will henceforth be referred to as Boy and Girl, until such time as they are old enough to chose a name for themselves.
Fraternal twins, they bear almost no resemblance to each other which is merciful because who wants to waste the brainpower trying to sort out one spooky identical twin from the other. I believe the Girl most resembles me:
The jury is undecided about the Boy. It is worth noting that anthropological geneticists posit the reason pups most often resemble he what sired ‘em, is a holdover from a more primitive era when fathers were known to eat newborns who’s lineage might be in question (rather than fattening them up for a later date as is now the case).
The missus and I brought the Girl to the den today for the first time, 11 days after she rent the pre-dawn skies with her Grinchy wails. The Boy will remain in his toaster for some more days in a secure facility well away from vulnerable life forms with inferior innate survival skills, like fawns, bunnies, Who-manoids and other bite-sized aperitifs masquerading as sentient.
Herself and I are of course moderately not-unhappy about this event and look forward to sharing our multiple 3-4 a.m. feedings with residents of neighboring den units. The Girl’s viewing hours will be restricted for the next few days, but once the bars of her cage are properly welded she will pose no danger to our guests.
In the manner of their species, they will henceforth be referred to as Boy and Girl, until such time as they are old enough to chose a name for themselves.
Fraternal twins, they bear almost no resemblance to each other which is merciful because who wants to waste the brainpower trying to sort out one spooky identical twin from the other. I believe the Girl most resembles me:
The jury is undecided about the Boy. It is worth noting that anthropological geneticists posit the reason pups most often resemble he what sired ‘em, is a holdover from a more primitive era when fathers were known to eat newborns who’s lineage might be in question (rather than fattening them up for a later date as is now the case).
The missus and I brought the Girl to the den today for the first time, 11 days after she rent the pre-dawn skies with her Grinchy wails. The Boy will remain in his toaster for some more days in a secure facility well away from vulnerable life forms with inferior innate survival skills, like fawns, bunnies, Who-manoids and other bite-sized aperitifs masquerading as sentient.
Herself and I are of course moderately not-unhappy about this event and look forward to sharing our multiple 3-4 a.m. feedings with residents of neighboring den units. The Girl’s viewing hours will be restricted for the next few days, but once the bars of her cage are properly welded she will pose no danger to our guests.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
RIP Tor Norling: Pengeskap reiser, meg venn
Inside a broken clock
Splashing the wine
With all the Rain Dogs
Taxi, we'd rather walk.
Huddle a doorway with the Rain Dogs
For I am a Rain Dog, too
Oh, how we danced and we swallowed the night
For it was all ripe for dreaming
Oh, how we danced away
All of the lights
We've always been out of our minds.
The Rum pours strong and thin
Beat out the dustman
With the Rain Dogs
Aboard a shipwreck train
Give my umbrella to the Rain Dogs
For I am a Rain Dog, too.
Oh, how we danced with the
Rose of Tralee
Her long hair black as a raven
Oh, how we danced and you
Whispered to me
You'll never be going back home
You'll never be going back home
Rain Dogs
Tom Waits - from the Album Rain Dogs
Learned this morning of the tragic and untimely death of my old friend, Bangkok-based Norweigan freelancer, Torgeir Norling.
Tor, 37, was killed early Sunday morning when he was hit by a bus while walking with friends.
A droll, soft-spoken fellow with a taste for the brew, we'd pooled resources and contacts on several occasions over the years, including East Timor, Afghanistan and a couple of times in Aceh, including in 2001 when he was detained and harassed by Indonesian intell in Lhokseumawe. We always wondered if it was the same braindead guys who busted and interrograted my wife and I for several hours in 2004.
Though we'd fallen out of contact the past couple of years we managed to hook up for beers at the Bangkok Foreign Correspondent's Club a few months back, shaggy, wild-eyed and chain-smoking, to rehash old stories and mull the future. He'd become a dad in the interim & the way he described it, he seemed to relish the part.
I was surprised to learn he's part-owner (dunno exact role, actually) in Rain Dogs bar off Rama IV Road: a suitable name for a man whose cleareyed reportage rested heavily on the little guy, the monk, the activist, the refugee.
Suitable offerings to Ullr, Odin and Freya tonight, my friend.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Monday, December 28, 2009
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...?
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
hey Charley I'm pregnant
and living on 9th street
right above a dirty bookstore
off cuclid avenue
and I stopped taking dope
and I quit drinking whiskey
and my old man plays the trombone
and works out at the track.
and he says that he loves me
even though its not his baby
and he says that he'll raise him up
like he would his own son
and he gave me a ring
that was worn by his mother
and he takes me out dancin
every saturday nite.
and hey Charley I think about you
everytime I pass a fillin' station
on account of all the grease
you used to wear in your hair
and I still have that record
of little anthony & the imperials
but someone stole my record player
how do you like that?
hey Charley I almost went crazy
after mario got busted
so I went back to omaha to
live with my folks
but everyone I used to know
was either dead or in prison
so I came back in minneapolis
this time I think I'm gonna stay.
hey Charley I think I'm happy
for the first time since my accident
and I wish I had all the money
that we used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot
and I wouldn't sell any of em
I'd just drive a different car
every day dependin' on how
I feel.
hey Charley
for chrissakes
do you want to know
the truth of it?
I don't have a husband
he don't play the trombone
and I need to borrow money
to pay this lawyer
and Charley, hey
I'll be eligible for parole
come valentines day.
Tom Waits
from the album Blue Valentine
1978
and living on 9th street
right above a dirty bookstore
off cuclid avenue
and I stopped taking dope
and I quit drinking whiskey
and my old man plays the trombone
and works out at the track.
and he says that he loves me
even though its not his baby
and he says that he'll raise him up
like he would his own son
and he gave me a ring
that was worn by his mother
and he takes me out dancin
every saturday nite.
and hey Charley I think about you
everytime I pass a fillin' station
on account of all the grease
you used to wear in your hair
and I still have that record
of little anthony & the imperials
but someone stole my record player
how do you like that?
hey Charley I almost went crazy
after mario got busted
so I went back to omaha to
live with my folks
but everyone I used to know
was either dead or in prison
so I came back in minneapolis
this time I think I'm gonna stay.
hey Charley I think I'm happy
for the first time since my accident
and I wish I had all the money
that we used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot
and I wouldn't sell any of em
I'd just drive a different car
every day dependin' on how
I feel.
hey Charley
for chrissakes
do you want to know
the truth of it?
I don't have a husband
he don't play the trombone
and I need to borrow money
to pay this lawyer
and Charley, hey
I'll be eligible for parole
come valentines day.
Tom Waits
from the album Blue Valentine
1978
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Grinch Behind the Wheel
The first time I drove a car in Jakarta, I buried the front end of Phil's Kijang under the rear bumper of a clapped out Metro Mini half a km from her driveway. It took 30 minutes and six guys bouncing on the hood to pop 'er free. That was June 1999 and I've basically not driven a four-wheeler in the city since.
Until now.
After much hemming and hawing, I've rented a 2006 Innova - a ubiquitous mid-sized Toyota MPV - and driver on a month-by-month basis: the days of her-pregnant-self sucking on bus fumes while trying to flag cabs in the rain @ 7pm are over. The ride come bundled with a driver - Pak Hakim - who appears to be a lovely unassuming 50something from Bekasi who giggles like a Japanese schoolgirl. We'll see how long it takes to break him of that habit as he adjusts to the world's worst backseat driver riding shotgun in a city of 1.5 million vehicles, most operated by unlicensed mouth-breathers who have sorted out clutch, brake and gas pedals and little else.
I've had 'er out a couple of times now, getting acclimatized & all that, and while it's early days I have picked p a few things in a decade of ojek and taxi travel here. Negotiating the streets of New Jak City is different than the highways and byways of Whoville where a social compact exists and certain clear conventions are taught (driving school/graduated licenses etc), enforced (traffic laws, armed co-commuters) and rewarded (relative safety of the journey, dawn coffee @ 140kmh etc).
(pic lifted from: http://allworldcars.com/wordpress/?p=11866)
The Jakarta driving experience requires a rewiring of Western neuro pathways, conventions and protocols. Like shoals of smelt, flights of swallows and a myriad other naturally occurring phenomena, traffic flow here is a classic reshaping of what psychologists call 'Emergence', a surrendering of the will of the individual to the wisdom and survival instincts of the collective, which allows novel and coherent structures to emerge as patterns and properties in complex systems re-organize themselves. In other words, the emergent system is much more than the sum of it parts.
The problem with the emergence is that it is predicated upon something beyond obedience, something more like surrender: the life of a single anchovy means less than nothing in a school of tens of billions. Its loss to a humpback whale or blue shark equals nothing.
Such is not the case, and even the most masochistic, deferential Javanese driver is still hardwired for survival. And, stupidity. He will not pull over for an ambulance or fire truck, but will brake - indeed often does - for no apparent reason whatsoever. He will pull over and park in the slow lane in order to sit and pluck single hairs from his chin oblivious to the massive jam it causes - part of the larger national blind-spot about the principle of cause and effect. S/he will drive 30 kph in the fast lane of the toll road, and 130 kph in the breakdown lane. The bar sticking out of the steering column that activates the windshield wipers is handy, but the other one... well it makes something tick and a light flash on the dashboard but for a case of kratendeng he couldn't tell you why and what for.
Nature didn't plan for idiocy or self-preservation so Jakarta's emergent system, nice as it is for fish and birds, doesn't work very well. How the Grinch will fit a square peg hammered into maturity on the mean streets of Montreal into this round hole remains to be seen. I can report that the wheel lock tucked under the driver's seat is a bit light, but it's one of those comfortable shorties that are quick to deploy and great for use in tight places... like traffic jams.
Until now.
After much hemming and hawing, I've rented a 2006 Innova - a ubiquitous mid-sized Toyota MPV - and driver on a month-by-month basis: the days of her-pregnant-self sucking on bus fumes while trying to flag cabs in the rain @ 7pm are over. The ride come bundled with a driver - Pak Hakim - who appears to be a lovely unassuming 50something from Bekasi who giggles like a Japanese schoolgirl. We'll see how long it takes to break him of that habit as he adjusts to the world's worst backseat driver riding shotgun in a city of 1.5 million vehicles, most operated by unlicensed mouth-breathers who have sorted out clutch, brake and gas pedals and little else.
I've had 'er out a couple of times now, getting acclimatized & all that, and while it's early days I have picked p a few things in a decade of ojek and taxi travel here. Negotiating the streets of New Jak City is different than the highways and byways of Whoville where a social compact exists and certain clear conventions are taught (driving school/graduated licenses etc), enforced (traffic laws, armed co-commuters) and rewarded (relative safety of the journey, dawn coffee @ 140kmh etc).
(pic lifted from: http://allworldcars.com/wordpress/?p=11866)
The Jakarta driving experience requires a rewiring of Western neuro pathways, conventions and protocols. Like shoals of smelt, flights of swallows and a myriad other naturally occurring phenomena, traffic flow here is a classic reshaping of what psychologists call 'Emergence', a surrendering of the will of the individual to the wisdom and survival instincts of the collective, which allows novel and coherent structures to emerge as patterns and properties in complex systems re-organize themselves. In other words, the emergent system is much more than the sum of it parts.
In practical terms it means the Jakarta traffic Jedi can dispense with checking rear- or side mirrors, blindside etc, accommodating merging vehicles or considering any impediment more than two car lengths ahead on the understanding that the collective will see him through.Braking to allow a fellow motorist to cross your bow provokes a symphony of horns as the lane behind accordions: better to roll ahead, ignore the interloper till he or she secures the suitable sine wave and squeezes through.
The problem with the emergence is that it is predicated upon something beyond obedience, something more like surrender: the life of a single anchovy means less than nothing in a school of tens of billions. Its loss to a humpback whale or blue shark equals nothing.
Such is not the case, and even the most masochistic, deferential Javanese driver is still hardwired for survival. And, stupidity. He will not pull over for an ambulance or fire truck, but will brake - indeed often does - for no apparent reason whatsoever. He will pull over and park in the slow lane in order to sit and pluck single hairs from his chin oblivious to the massive jam it causes - part of the larger national blind-spot about the principle of cause and effect. S/he will drive 30 kph in the fast lane of the toll road, and 130 kph in the breakdown lane. The bar sticking out of the steering column that activates the windshield wipers is handy, but the other one... well it makes something tick and a light flash on the dashboard but for a case of kratendeng he couldn't tell you why and what for.
Nature didn't plan for idiocy or self-preservation so Jakarta's emergent system, nice as it is for fish and birds, doesn't work very well. How the Grinch will fit a square peg hammered into maturity on the mean streets of Montreal into this round hole remains to be seen. I can report that the wheel lock tucked under the driver's seat is a bit light, but it's one of those comfortable shorties that are quick to deploy and great for use in tight places... like traffic jams.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)