INDONESIA A NEWS

The complicated policies to overcome congestion in Jakarta

2012-02-06T09:11:00.000+07:00

A young woman, carrying her infant son in a sling around her neck, stands in the shadows of a decaying concrete pylon, her hand extended in the hope that a passing motorist will pick her up. Maya Sari, 23, and one-year-old Muhammad are ''jockeys''. Jakarta motorists pay to carry them in peak hour traffic, because to legally travel on the city's best roads, cars need three occupants. Babies count, and they cost less to hire than an adult, so on feeder roads all over the city, women and their young children stand touting for business. One ride with them costs the driver about 20,000 rupiah, or $2.15.

As Jakarta's population grows in wealth, 565 more cars and 3006 more motorbikes clog its roads every day. According to one official report, this city with a daytime population of 11 million is just nine years away from being gridlocked. When it rains and the roads flood, many areas are there already. It's the most immediately obvious of Indonesia's profound infrastructure problems that economist Chatib Basri says are cramping the growth rate of south-east Asia's largest economy. It should be growing at 9 per cent, like its rivals China and India. Instead it's 6.5 per cent.

There is no quick fix. Jakarta's authorities introduced the ''three-in-one' ' rule to reduce the number of cars, but it has only succeeded in creating entrepreneurs like Maya.

She brings Muhammad on the train to Jakarta twice a day from her village of Parung Panjang to stand with dozens of others in both peak hours among the exhaust fumes and the noise, to ride in the vehicles of strangers. Her nine hour day on the roadside provides her family's only income and with five mouths to feed, they are glad to have it. ''With a child it's very difficult to find a job,'' she says. ''This is the only one I can do and keep my child with me.''

The huge concrete pylons are testament to a transport failure of a different sort. They were built to carry a monorail to augment the city's desperately inadequate public transport system. But it was abandoned without explanation in 2004. The steel reinforcing rods are rusting and all the pylons carry now is advertising.

There are signs of inadequate infrastructure countrywide. Trucks regularly park in line for hours, even days, at Merak Port on the western tip of Java, waiting to cross the Sunda Strait. Ferries provide the only transport between the two most populous islands, Java and Sumatra and bad weather often slows the service or even halts it entirely. A feasibility study for a 30 kilometre bridge between the islands was announced this week. But long-planned projects often fail to materialise here.

A Malaysian investor was last month forced to cancel plans to build a hydro-electricity plant in West Kalimantan because the surrounding roads were not up to the construction task. Social infrastructure, too, is lacking. The CIA World Fact Book puts Indonesia near the bottom of global rankings for access to hospital beds, with just 0.6 beds per 1000 population compared to 3.82 in Australia, and it spends 2.8 per cent of GDP on education, compared to Australia's 4.5 per cent.

Indonesia's economy should be in the ''sweet spot''Dr Basri, a consultant and government adviser says. But without huge investments in infrastructure, it will miss the opportunities that a young population and bullish investors offer. National and local governments appear to have heeded the message. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has made spending on infrastructure development a top priority, promising to spend $160billion by 2015, with almost half coming from private companies through partnerships. But corruption, red tape, problems with land acquisition and uncertain public finances often thwart projects before the foundations are even laid. ''The policy decisions are fine, it's the implementation that can be a problem,'' Dr Basri says.

The government last week cancelled a planned $1.3billion public-private partnership to upgrade the country's biggest port - the colonial-era Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta. Companies that had tendered for the work were left in limbo after authorities announced they could not afford the $389 million required for access roads and bridges. None of this surprises the 11 million Indonesians who live in and around the capital. Ratna Utami, 32, who works in the city and lives in middle class Depok, in West Java, must leave at 5.30am to catch a bus if she hopes to be at the office by nine. A few minutes late leaving home and it ''would be a blessing'' to make the office by 10am. Home time is 12 hours later, 10pm.

For commuters there are few alternatives to the private car or the sea of motorbikes. Designated bus lanes have limited success in speeding up a trip as motorists illegally drive in these lanes if they think they will get away with it.

The trains are so crowded that people resort to riding on the roof, prompting the state rail company to hang large concrete balls from overpasses to stop them. Even walking is hazardous. Pedestrians must first find a footpath - not so easy on Jakarta's streets - then it's a question of dodging huge, open drainage holes, uneven surfaces and the motorbike riders who routinely use them to beat the traffic. The brave souls from pedestrian lobby group Koalisi Pejalan Kaki are trying to reclaim the footpaths; they often lie down in front of the motorbikes to make their point. ''I've been called crazy and yelled at and argued with,'' activist Anthony Ladjar says, ''but the pedestrians have rights for safety.''

The government is also talking up its plan for a new above-and-below ground rail system, Jakarta MRT [mass rapid transport] that when completed would be 111 kilometres long and carry up to 960,000 commuters a day.

Jakarta's governor, Fauzi Bowo, known as ''Foke,'' told the Herald the idea for MRT had been around for 20 years, but ''it was hindered by budget limitations' ', particularly to the regional budget. But now it is a priority and construction is due to start in September. But Jakartans are sceptical. ''I've been living in Jakarta for over 30 years,'' says a Twitter-based pedestrian activist Glenn Marsilim, who posts as @JalanKaki. ''I try to be optimistic. But sometimes it's hard.''

2007, Indonesia stop sending maids to Saudi Arabia

2012-01-30T11:52:00.000+07:00

Indonesia is looking to stop sending its nationals to work as maids abroad by 2017, under a "roadmap" it is drawing up to reform and formalise its domestic worker sector. Under the Domestic Worker Roadmap 2017, it wants to ensure maids are treated like other workers when they work abroad - earning minimum wages, getting leave and working fixed hours, for example. The plan is part of a larger aim to raise the skills of the thousands of Indonesians going overseas to work, according to the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.

If it is carried out, however, it could mean a massive shortage of maids for places like Singapore and Malaysia, both of which rely heavily on domestic workers from Indonesia. Indonesians account for almost half of Singapore's 200,000-plus maids, and 80 per cent of Malaysia's 350,000 maids.

"Under the roadmap, we target zero sending out of domestic maids," Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar was quoted by news reports as saying yesterday. He acknowledged, however, that the task would be a challenging one, as most Indonesians seeking jobs abroad are low-skilled.

Some criticised the idea for being difficult to implement. The roadmap comes amid ongoing efforts by Jakarta to address maid abuse abroad.

In 2009, Indonesia banned maids from going to Malaysia following a spate of abuse cases. The ban was lifted last year after Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur hammered out an agreement on a slew of measures to better protect maids working in Malaysia. Jakarta was also reported to be reviewing which countries it will allow maids to work in.

About 650,000 Indonesians leave home every year to work as maids abroad, many of them from East Java and West Nusa Tenggara provinces. Under the roadmap being drawn up, Jakarta could require host countries to spell out job specifications for maids clearly.

"They should be placed in specific positions such as cook, housekeeper or caregiver," Mr Muhaimin was quoted by Bernama as saying. He added that these workers should also enjoy the usual rights that their formal counterparts get, such as predetermined working hours, leave, minimum wages and "social guarantees". But the minister also acknowledged that Jakarta would have to deal with several challenges when implementing the plan, including providing alternative jobs in Indonesia. Some 45 per cent of the country's 120 million-strong workforce have no more than primary school education, the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry noted.

Mr Muhaimin said the government was working to enhance the skills and competency levels of the country's workers in the industrial and creative economic sectors. Critics, however, said the roadmap was unworkable.

Activist Syaiful Anas at the Jakarta-based Migrant Care, a non-governmental group that looks out for migrant workers, said the government should improve the protection of maids instead of trying to stop them from going overseas to work. The plan, he charged, contradicts a recent statement by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that Indonesia recognises maids as belonging to a proper profession.

"It's hard to believe Muhaimin made such statements.. . we all know there are still many who need to be maids," he told The Straits Times. Mr Rusjdi Basalamah, who owns and runs an agency that sends maids overseas, also doubted that the plan would work. "We now have a moratorium in place on the sending of maids to certain Middle Eastern countries, but many have still gone there illegally and the government could not do anything about it," he said.

Redenominate Rupiah and viability Indonesia economic

2012-01-24T09:47:00.000+07:00

Draft legislation to redenominate Indonesia's currency is expected to gain momentum this year as lawmakers and monetary authorities push to drop the last three zeros from the nominal value of the rupiah. While the paper change will be largely cosmetic, analysts are divided on whether a redenomination could spark inflation and sow confusion among the public.

The rupiah currently trades at 9,200 to the US dollar and is the second-lowest priced currency in the world, trailing only the Vietnamese dong. The rupiah collapsed amid the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis and despite economic and financial recovery still trades at a fraction of its pre-crisis value.

Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said last month that the government was prepared to submit the draft law to the House of Representatives (DPR) for approval. The central bank, Bank Indonesia, has backed the move for various reasons, including the need to simplify accounting standards for transactions that now often exceed trillions of rupiah to the national pride that will be supposedly restored through a lower nominal currency value.

If the bill is passed, as is expected, Bank Indonesia has said it will need one to two years to introduce the concept to the public and explain how to adapt accounting and information systems. During the proposed transition period, prices of goods would be labelled with both the old and new rupiah rates. Old notes would later be recalled and replaced by new notes where one rupiah would be equivalent to 1,000 of the old bills, according to the proposed plan.

Certain financial analysts wonder if redenomination could be used to mask a devaluation of the currency to improve export competitiveness. If so, the policy motivation isn't abundantly apparent: Indonesian gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 6.5% last year, up from 6.1% in 2010. That represented the fastest growth clip seen since 1996, the year before the Asian financial crisis hit and bankrupted the national coffers. GDP growth is projected to hit 6.3% this year.

In December, Fitch Ratings was the first of the three major credit agencies to raise Indonesia's sovereign rating from junk status to BBB minus, based on the country's steady economic growth, low debt and strong macroeconomic position. The upgrade represented the first time Indonesia has achieved investment grade status since the economy collapsed during the 1997-98 financial crisis.

Moody's followed suit this week, raising Indonesia's rating from debt to investment grade. The credit rating agency said Indonesia's cyclical resilience to large external shocks pointed to sustainably high trend growth over the medium term.

"A more favorable assessment of Indonesia's economic strength is underpinned by gains in investment spending, improved prospects for infrastructure development following key policy reforms, and a well-managed financial system," Moody's said in a public statement.

Fundamental strengths

The rupiah was relatively stable against the US dollar during last year, a troubling economic and financial period around the world, with the local unit trading between 8,500-9,000 to the greenback.

That stability would seem to indicate that the proposed redenomination plan is not being driven by urgent economic problems, as has been the case in the past. Inflation was a manageable 3.79% in December, marking a 20-month low, although there are indications that exports are slowing amid economic turbulence in Europe and the United States and slowing growth in China.

Bank Indonesia deputy governor Budi Rochadi has acknowledged that a redenomination of the rupiah would be "disastrous" if the transition was attempted during a period of high inflation. He has said that three requirements must be met to redenominate successfully, namely a stable economic environment, low inflation and a government guarantee of price stability. He has said that all three conditions are currently and securely in place.

Mika Martumpal, a currency analyst at Commonwealth Bank based in Jakarta, believes that the redenomination plan carries few economic risks.

"It's not an overnight change. Bank Indonesia has planned to have a transition period that may run for years in which both currencies - existing rupiah and new rupiah - are accepted as legal tender. Consequently, the public will have time to accept the new currency," he said.

Martumpal notes that Turkey dropped five zeroes from the lira and had two currencies in circulation for four years before dropping the word "new" from the replacement currency in 2009. Turkey has often been cited as a success in using redenomination to fight inflation and simplify economic transactions that were previously denominated in terms of billions, trillions and even quadrillions, Martumpal notes.

The key to avoiding a sudden currency devaluation during redenomination is public education, according to Johannes Ginting, a market analyst at Monex Investindo Futures. "Preparing the public to accept the new rupiah will take time. During the transition period, prices of goods have to be clearly marked with two currencies to ensure that psychologically people will understand that the value of their money has not dropped," he said.

Traumatic past

Managing those perceptions, however, may be easier said than done. An older generation of Indonesians remembers having the value of their savings drastically reduced through currency redenomination schemes implemented in 1950, 1956 and 1966. The first, in 1950, saw then finance minister Syarifuddin Prawiranegara order the public to literally tear in half all of the notes they held denominated over five rupiah.

The left portion of a torn bill was valid as legal tender but worth only half the pre-torn bill's original amount. The right portion of the torn unit was no longer valid but could be exchanged for government bonds - valued far less than the money's original face value.

The policy aimed to reduce public purchasing power, counter hyperinflation and pay off then-spiraling national debt. While the policy's success in dampening inflation was temporary, the move managed to drastically reduce the quantity of money in circulation and replaced the bills issued by the colonial Dutch administration.

In 1959, Indonesia again sought to reduce the amount of money in circulation and contain hyperinflation. A presidential decree acted to drop one zero off all 500 and 1,000 rupiah notes, an unexpected move announced on the radio that effectively reduced the value of the currency by 90% overnight. Those ham-fisted interventions collapsed the value of the rupiah, which fell from 45 to the US dollar in 1955 to 35,000 by 1965.

An even more radical change took place in 1965 to curb inflation that then ran as high as 650% Then president and independence hero Sukarno, whose central bank over-printed bank notes to finance political prestige projects, ordered the public to exchange their old 1,000 rupiah notes for new one rupiah notes. The move drove prices even higher as Indonesians ditched cash for gold, goods and other assets.

Indonesia is now in better technocratic hands, but policymakers still feel obliged to play down that economic history. The proposed redenomination plan, Bank Indonesia officials have emphasized, is wholly different from the schemes of the past. Central bank governor Darmin Nasution has repeatedly said that the purchasing power of the rupiah will remain the same, despite dropping three zeroes from its nominal value.

Still some local analysts and business leaders suspect a hidden agenda and have referred to lingering "trauma" among older Indonesians when discussing the potential downsides of the redenomination plan.

"This has been done back in the president Sukarno era," said Sofyan Wanandi, general chairman of the Indonesian Business Association (Apindo), in a recent interview. "However it was not fruitful. Instead society endured trauma."

The island of New Guinea - the black island like black skin the people of New Guinea

2012-01-17T09:17:00.000+07:00

The year 2011 was a tumultuous one for the island of New Guinea, the world's second-largest and perhaps most politically divided island. Papua New Guinea (PNG), the independent country on the island's eastern half, suffered from a four-month political standoff that was at least temporarily resolved in late December.

On the island's western half, consisting of two Indonesian provinces, what started out as a strike over wages at the Grasberg mine spiraled into four months of protests which fueled a revival of the Papuan independence movement. While relative peace had been restored on both sides of the island by year's end, lasting stability will depend on a number of mutable factors in the year ahead.

The key figure in the PNG political crisis - and also the key figure in the country since its independence - is Sir Michael Somare. Somare headed the first "indigenous" government from 1972-1975 before PNG acquired official independence from Australia in 1975. He was then PNG's prime minister from 1975-1980, 1982-1985, and again from 2002 until June 2011. Somare's family announced his retirement from politics last June due to ill health and he left the country for Singapore for three months to recover from heart surgery.

Sam Abal became the acting prime minister while Somare was recuperating out of country, but was ousted on August 2 in favor of Peter O'Neill, the head of the opposition People's National Congress Party, when 73 pro-O'Neill members of the 109-member parliament declared the government legally vacant and elected O'Neill as prime minister. Parliament then passed retroactive legislation formally recognizing O'Neill as the premier.

After returning to PNG, Somare challenged the legality of what he termed a "bloodless coup" to the Supreme Court. The court then had to decide which of the two competing prime ministers - Somare or O'Neill - had the right to power and whether Somare's or O'Neill's governor general, police commissioner, and cabinet could rightly rule. In a hotly contested 3-2 decision, the court held that the election to install O'Neill as prime minister was unconstitutional.

On December 14, Governor General Michael Ogio swore Somare and his cabinet into power, but in response the O'Neill loyalist dominated parliament voted to suspend Ogio and chose Speaker of Parliament Jeffrey Nape as his replacement. Nape swore in O'Neill in as prime minister later in the day of December 14. O'Neill had extra police flown into the capital of Port Moresby to take control of government assets, including the Government Printing Office, Treasury, and Government House while Somare's faction occupied other government offices.

The stand-off and potential for violence threatened to spark a crisis, one with geostrategic implications in light of intensifying competition between Chinese and American companies interested in PNG's resources. In March 2011, for example, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accused China of trying to "come in behind" the US and undermine Exxon Mobil's US$15 billion liquefied natural gas project in PNG.

An autocratic turn in PNG could have played favorably into China's position, especially if PNG followed the way of nearby Fiji. A 2006 military coup there led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama undercut Fiji's civil society and established a new military dictatorship that has engaged China as its new patron. The Commonwealth banished Fiji from its membership in 2009, but that only pushed the country further into China's orbit.

Different dynamics are in play in PNG, however. Ogio, who is also the Queen's envoy for PNG in the Commonwealth, declared the swearing in of Somare "wrong and invalid" on December 20, thus paving the way for O'Neill to ascend to the premiership. While it is unclear what internal discussion the British Crown and Ogio may have held, the final result was that Somare, despite his insistence that he was the country's rightful leader, lost significant international support. For the time being, political stability has returned to PNG under O'Neill's leadership.

While PNG was embroiled in a potentially volatile political dispute, its neighbor, Papua Indonesia, was rocked by an intensifying labor dispute that acted to galvanize a long simmering insurgent movement. A workers' strike at the Grasberg mine over wages and other issues that started on September 15 evolved into a four-month standoff pitting at least 8,000 Indonesian miners, most of whom were indigenous Papuans, against the Indonesian subsidiary of the US mining company Freeport-McMoRan.

One month into the strike, Freeport was forced in October to declare force majeure when it could not meet its contractual obligations on shipments of copper and gold concentrate under sales agreements from its Grasberg mine. Grasberg had been operating at only 5% capacity because of the strike and the workers were blocking off main roads from Porsite Harbor to the towns of Timika, Kuala Kencana and Tembagapura, which cut off food, production equipment, medicine and other supplies needed for the mine's operations.

The strike led to protests and violence between the miners and Indonesian security forces which came down on the side of Freeport. Indonesian police and paramilitary fighters opened fire at a large demonstration in Timika, the town nearest to the mine, killing two at least strikers in October. As the violence escalated and the acrimony between the miners and the Indonesian government intensified, decades-old Papuan resentment over heavy-handed Indonesian rule boiled to the surface.

On November 31, hundreds of Papuans converged in a rally in Timika where groups of indigenous Papuans hoisted the flag of Papuan independence, a move that had provoked violent security force responses in the past. After allegedly shooting warning shots, the police then fired on the crowd, killing at least four people. Smaller rallies then broke out throughout cities in Papua in which at least one more Papuan was killed.

In total, eight people were killed in protests during the four months before a deal to settle the strike was reached on December 13. The agreement led to a 40% wage increase over two years for the miners, improved benefits, and a promise by Freeport to base future wage negotiations on cost of living and competitor benchmarks. In addition, workers were reimbursed for lost wages during the strike by a one-time three month "signing bonus".

Unlike in PNG, however, the deal the deal between Freeport and the miners failed to contain the protests for Papuan independence or settle the wider crisis. Less than a week after the deal was reached, a helicopter flying at 600 feet over the Grasberg mine site was shot at allegedly by Papuan independence fighters. One of the 23 passengers was injured and the helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in Timika.

The rebel Panai Free Papua Liberation Army (TPN-OPM) justified the attack by claiming that the helicopter was on the way to carry out attacks on Papuan villages in areas the group controls. In a December 16 report by the West Papua Media group, it was claimed that over four full strength combat battalions of the Indonesian army, paramilitary police and the elite counter-terrorism unit Detachment 88 launched an offensive where villages, schools and other buildings were burnt down in a bid to surround the TPN-OPM's headquarters under the command of General Jhon Yogi. The news group claimed at least 18 people were killed in the government assault.

Whether the rebels' claims are more propaganda than truth could not be independently corroborated, but the messaging shows how Papuan fighters have exploited the Freeport issue for their political purposes.

Despite New Guinea island's vast untapped resources and economic potential, PNG has struggled to chart a stable path as an independent country, while Papua remains pitched in a struggle against Indonesian rule. The tentative resolution of PNG's political crisis and the Papuan miners' strike brought both sides of the island back from the brink, but there is still unfinished business in both geographies.

Papuan independence fighters are now more active than before the Freeport strike and PNG is on guard against a potential sudden attempt by Somare to retake political power by force. If both PNG and Papua can accommodate the different political, labor, and cultural interests within their respective borders, 2012 could present both parts of the island with opportunities for peace and development. However, recent history shows reaching such a complex accommodation will be difficult and new bouts of instability can not be ruled out.

punk lovers in the lives of Aceh people

2011-12-16T09:29:00.000+07:00

Dozens of young men and women have been detained for being "punk" and disturbing the peace in Aceh, Indonesia's most devoutly Muslim province. They are being held in a remedial school, where they are undergoing "re-education" .

Rights groups have expressed concern after photographs emerged of the young men having their mohawks and funky hairstyles shaved off by Aceh's police. They look sullen and frightened as they are forced into a communal bath. But Aceh's police say they are not trying to harm the youths, they are trying to protect them. The 64 punks, many of whom are from as far away as Bali or Jakarta, were picked up on Saturday night during a local concert.

Aceh police spokesman Gustav Leo says there have been complaints from residents nearby. The residents did not like the behaviour of the punks and alleged that some of them had approached locals for money. Mr Leo stressed that no-one had been charged with any crime, and there were no plans to do so.

They have now been taken to a remedial school in the Seulawah Hills, about 60km (37 miles) away from the provincial capital Banda Aceh. "They will undergo a re-education so their morals will match those of other Acehnese people," says Mr Leo. But activists say the manner in which the young people have been treated is humiliating and a violation of human rights.

Aceh Human Rights Coalition chief Evi Narti Zain says the police should not have taken such harsh steps, accusing them of treating children like criminals. "They are just children, teenagers, expressing themselves," she says. "Of course there are Acehnese people who complained about them - but regardless of that, this case shouldn't have been handled like this. They were doused with cold water, and their heads were shaved - this is a human rights violation. Their dignity was abused."

But Mr Leo disagrees. It is the second time the police have cracked down on punk culture in Aceh. "We didn't arrest them, they haven't committed any criminal offence," he says. "They are Aceh's own children - we are doing this for their own good. Their future could be at risk. We are re-educating them so they don't shame their parents."

This is the second time Aceh's police have clamped down on punks in the province, which is the only province in Indonesia allowed to implement shariah law. There is a thriving underground punk music scene in Aceh, but many punk-lovers are viewed suspiciously by local residents. Many of the young teens sport outrageous hairstyles, in keeping with punk culture, but against the norms of the keenly religious in Aceh.

Aceh is one of the most devout Muslim provinces in Indonesia, and observers say it has becoming increasingly more conservative since Islamic law was implemented a few years ago.

Elegy Indonesian laborers

2011-12-06T21:02:00.000+07:00

When the Jakarta governor offered a hefty pay rise last week to workers, he successfully headed off a major strike. But almost immediately, workers went on the rampage in another part of the country demanding a wage hike too.

It is another illustration of the most recent and, for investors, troubling risk they face in what has become one of the darlings of the emerging economies.

The big drivers for the strikes have been high prices for the commodities that are the backbone of the Indonesian economy, rising costs and a strong sense that the country's widely trumpeted economic successes have not been shared.

"Workers are not dumb. They are going to see prices are high. They're going to say 'we want our just rewards'," said Dick Blin, spokesman for the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which covers the bulk of Indonesia's main industries.

The highest profile -- and so far most costly -- strike has been going on since September at the giant Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc mine where 8,000 miners in the remote eastern province are demanding better pay.

Though union leaders in other industries deny that the Freeport strike was their trigger, the number of strikes has begun to mushroom across a broad range of industries from supermarket to telecoms, threatening to temper investor enthusiasm for one of Asia's fastest growing economies.

"These strikes are dangerous and show how weak the government is in facing industrial disputes," said Sofjan Wanandi, a leading businessman and chairman of the Employers' Association of Indonesia.

"With this situation, businesses will re-consider their expansion and investment plans, as well as plans to relocate factories from China to Indonesia," he said.

Businessmen from South Korea, a top investor, were also expressing concern, he said.

Investors in Southeast Asia's biggest economy have long factored in industrial-scale corruption, a complex and lethargic bureaucracy and even militant attacks.

But industrial disputes in the densely populated society, which has had little more than a decade of democracy, is a much newer hurdle.

Union membership is still quite low in a country where militant union leaders just a few years ago could expect to be hounded into jail, or worse.

POOR REFEREES

Subiyanto, the Secretary-General of Indonesia's Chemical, Energy and Mining Union Federation, estimates that only seven percent of companies have unions and the total number of workers who belong to unions is 15 percent. The number, though, appears to be growing.

Some labor-related laws are decades out of date and the number of officials supervising companies is simply too small to cope, he said.

"The fact is that government supervisors in the regions are getting lower and lower in number. For example in Tangerang regency (an industrial region), there are not more than 10 supervisors overseeing over 4,000 companies. How can you possibly monitor relations between the workers and the capital owners?"

"It's like playing football when the referee is not firm and you can see the strong oppressing the weak."

Some of those strikes have turned violent, and tension over the failure to create enough higher value jobs in the predominately youthful population could become one of the biggest mid-term risks, some analysts say.

A planned strike last week in Jakarta by 85,000 unionized workers was averted after the city governor agreed to hike minimum wages by about 20 percent.

Almost immediately, there was a similar protest for higher pay by 10,000 workers in Batam, an island home to manufacturers from nearby Singapore.

This time the response was slow. The military had to guard industrial estates after a mob burned traffic police posts and cars and attacked a government office.

As Freeport considers lifting pay by as much as double for more skilled contractors to end its crippling strike, any high pay award risks setting a precedent.

"If somebody asks for more, everybody will follow. That's a fact," said Alwin Lubis, president director at Indonesian miner Aneka Tambang. "That is what we're worried about."

RISING PRICES

The Freeport strike has come after gold prices doubled in the past two years. Prices for many commodities of which Indonesia is a leading exporter, such as tin, copper, coffee and cocoa, have also hit record highs in recent years.

"These commodity prices are a good opportunity to negotiate for better welfare, pay and wages," said Khoirul Anam, president of the Indonesian Forestry and Allied Workers' Union.

He said conditions were often little different from the days under Dutch colonial rule, arguing, for example, that palm oil workers should be paid three times as much.

"The bargaining position of labor in Indonesia has increased. However, it is not that much. They have slowly understood their rights and are demanding more," said Andriko Otang from the Trade Unions Rights Centre.

BILLIONAIRES AND LOW SALARIES

The strikes have coincided with growing wealth on the back of the global price commodity boom and a burst in consumerism.

On the day workers rioted in Batam, others were injured in a 5,000-strong crush to get half price Blackberry mobile phones in the capital. Also that day, Forbes released a report saying the country had created four more billionaires, with the wealth of its Indonesia "Rich List" up by 19 percent to $85 billion.

Indonesia is creating millionaires faster than any other in the Asia-Pacific, according to wealth manager Julius Baer.

Yet monthly wages average $113, less than a half that in Thailand and a third of China's, according to the Asian Development Bank's latest data. And half the population survives on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

Low-wage workers, seeing pay rises cancelled out by food prices climbing 15 percent last year, are being surrounded by growing consumerism and displays of wealth. Their expectations and perceptions of inequality are rising too.

"Many of us don't see any improvements in our life," said Sari, a worker making Adidas shoes in a footwear factory, a sector where plants have relocated from China and Vietnam in the past year after wage costs rose there.

"A factor that would make a person go on strike is when one feels trapped. We are going in that direction, so the likelihood for more strikes in garment, textile and shoe factories is huge."

Djoko Susanto - become millionaire from the business shut down traditional markets owners

2011-12-03T12:25:00.000+07:00

At age 17 Djoko Susanto started managing his parents' modest 560-foot stall inside Pasar Arjuna, a traditional market in Jakarta. The stall, called Sumber Bahagia ("source of happiness"), sold groceries at the time, but soon Djoko decided there was a bigger opportunity peddling cigarettes. Business was brisk as not only smokers but also small wholesalers and retailers became frequent customers.

His gamble on smokers paid off in a bigger way than the enterprising shopkeeper could have imagined, attracting notice from Putera Sampoerna (No. 9 on our list of Indonesia's richest), whose own company was then one of the nation's largest makers of clove and tobacco cigarettes. The two met in the early 1980s and agreed in 1985 to build 15 similar stalls in several areas of Jakarta. The venture was successful and inspired the two to open a discount supermarket store named Alfa Toko Gudang Rabat. That same year Djoko became the sales and distribution director at Sampoerna's much bigger and more established firm.

The pair opened their first Alfa Minimart (the name was later changed to Alfamart) in 1994 to appeal to Indonesia's lower- to middle-class customers in search of cheap prices and convenience. "I thought about naming it Sampoerna Mart, but I used Alfa, a known and tested brand," says Djoko.

The partnership lasted until 2005, when Sampoerna sold his tobacco business, along with its subsidiaries (including his firm's 70% stake in Alfamart), to Philip Morris International for slightly more than $5 billion.

With no interest in retail, Philip Morris gladly sold the Alfamart stake to Djoko and private equity investor Northstar. Last year Djoko bought out Northstar, leaving him with 65% of the company. It was a smart move: Shares of the thinly traded retailer have doubled in the past 12 months (and quadrupled over the past two years), catapulting him into the ranks of the world's billionaires. He makes his debut at No. 25 among Indonesia's richest, with a net worth of $1.04 billion.

Djoko, who sold the supermarket business a few years ago, is still bullish on his convenient and affordable minimarts. The sector is growing an average 15% to 20% a year in terms of sales. Alfamart, whose 5,500 stores serve more than 2 million customers daily and employ more than 57,000, is leading the transition from roadside wooden shacks selling dubious goods to modern minimarts with reliable items at prices that are the same or better. It is looking to open another 800 outlets in 2012.

"The minimarket is always accused of hampering the traditional markets. What they do is encourage the traditional market to improve their services," says Djoko.

Not have diplomatic relations, Indonesia and Israel remain intertwined cooperation

2011-11-20T06:36:00.000+07:00

Five medical experts from Indonesia are graduating Thursday from a course at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center on coping with natural and man-made catastrophes.

They are among a group of 27 physicians and nurses from 17 countries taking part in a simulated mass casualty event (MCE).

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country, but it has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

Rambam management said the simulation is part of the eighth course of its kind, being held from November 6 through the end of this week. It is jointly sponsored by Rambam, the Foreign Ministry and the Health Ministry.

Rambam’s staffers are experts in trauma, emergency and mass casualty situations due to being the main hospital in the North. For years, the hospital has received soldiers injured on the northern border and beyond, as well as civilians caught in home-front wars and terrorist attacks.

“In the course, we learn how to build a system for operating in emergency, trauma and MCE. We did not come to seek medical information, but guidance on how to get organized in case of these situations,” said neurology professor Andi Asadul Islam, from Hassan Udim University in Makassar, Indonesia. “Rambam’s system for trauma is the best there is, and we can learn a lot from it.”

The group will receive their diplomas at the ceremony at Rambam.

“We don’t have a good system,” Islam continued. Indonesia’s broad geography presents specific challenges in supplying medical care, he explained. With some 250 million citizens scattered among five large islands and thousands of smaller ones, Indonesia spans an area, from west to east, equal to the length of the US.

Rambam also houses the only trauma system in the North, serving nine general hospitals who cannot take care of severe-trauma patients. The hospital’s Teaching Center for Trauma, Emergency and Mass Casualty Situations leads instruction in this field nationwide and regularly holds international seminars for doctors and nurses from around the world. The center also sends representatives to different countries to teach courses and holds workshops for NATO personnel.

“I had heard about the Rambam course from colleagues who had taken it, and they said it was great,” said Asti Puspita Rini, who manages the 118 Emergency Ambulance Service Foundation in Jakarta, the capital. “It has been an excellent course... We won’t be able to implement each and every thing we learned but will certainly adopt parts of the program.”

The course involves theoretical lectures and enables participants to receive a wide view of the activities of the various emergency medicine units. They also visit IDF simulation centers and Magen David Adom headquarters.

The foreign participants are also taken to national and tourist sites, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

“As a Muslim, it was especially interesting for me to see the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem,” said Islam. “Some of my friends and family were afraid and didn’t want me to come here because of what they see on TV,” said Rini, “but it’s totally different than what the media show.”

They were also introduced to humous.

“Everything is well-organized and perfect,” said Dr. Edi Prasetyo, medical adviser on home care in Jakarta. “We get to see the big picture – how the whole nationwide system works.”

Indonesia broke relations with the Arab labor agencies

2011-11-10T05:33:00.000+07:00

Indonesian authorities have cancelled the licenses of 28 Indonesian agencies that specialized in recruiting Indonesian workers for jobs overseas, including Kuwait, accusing them of violating the Southeast Asian country's labor laws, according to an insider. The insider revealed that the Indonesian labor ministry had assessed over 387 recruitment agencies, stressing that the results showed that only 28 of these had been violating the law against sending workers to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Malaysia, which were blacklisted for Indonesian domestic workers to travel to for work.

According to the Indonesian Minister of Manpower and Transmigration, Mohaymen Eskandar, the assessment report showed that these agencies had been forging documents on agency workers' age, training and medical records. In other news, the Iraqi parliament's White Bloc (WB) recently urged their country's envoy to the UN to demand that Iraq be exempted from the UN's Chapter Seven on the grounds that the reasons for this classification had ended a long time ago and that the whole issue is now in the hands of on e country, Kuwait.

WB member MP Alia Nassef insisted that Kuwait hates Iraq and its people, adding that Kuwait would never forget old grudges, adding, "It's obvious that Kuwait is taking retaliation against the helpless Iraqi people and blaming them for the follies of the former regime." Nassef urged the Iraqi UN envoy to work to obtain exemption for Iraq from Chapter Seven status, which she said was only maintained "upon Kuwaiti demands.

The UN's Chapter Seven consists of 13 articles that are still applicable due to various unresolved issues, such as the whereabouts of the remains of a number of Kuwaiti prisoners of war and other citizens, as well as looted Kuwaiti artifacts and documents belonging to the Amiri Diwan and the Crown Prince's Archives, along with compensation for environmental and oil damages.

On a separate issue, a Ministry of Defense insider said yesterday that in his statement about 'good news for the military after Eid,' the Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah was referring to the upcoming publication of a number of lists naming those bedoon (stateless) servicemen to be accorded Kuwaiti citizenship. The minister personally supervised the compilation of these lists over the past two years, said the insider, adding that sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak personally ensured that the information for each candidate was scrupulously documented and verified.

The insider added that the first of the names of those to be naturalized would be announced in the next four months, and will include those military personnel who fought in the 1967 and 1973 wars, who had no negative security history, who held no other citizenship and who had been living in Kuwait since 1965. Priority will be given especially to those who fought in the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait following the 1990 Iraqi invasion.

Finally, a parliamentary insider said yesterday that once the scandal over the accusations of multimillion dinar corruption have been resolved the current parliamentary alliance of opposition MPs formed to support the grilling of the premier will dissolve just as the previous 'Anything But the Constitution' coalition formed by MP Jamaan Al-Harbish did.

Opposition MPs agree on grilling the prime minister over the deposits, but they disagree over various other issues such as grilling ministers who are sheikhs," said the insider , adding that the opposition MPs would definitely disagree on demanding a 'no-cooperation vote' against certain ministers or a 'no-trust vote' against the interior and defense ministers.

The insider also suggested that the opposition alliance had asked its members not to participate in a session called by 12 MPs for November 14 to vote on teachers' pay increases and student grants, on the grounds that this session was only being held to divert attention from the main one taking place the next day.

Freeport will be examined the U.S. Department of Justice

2011-11-07T20:07:00.000+07:00

The United Steelworkers (USW) requested yesterday that the U.S. Department of Justice immediately begin to investigate whether Freeport-McMoRan has been bribing security forces in Indonesia.

The Indonesian police have recently been quoted in the local media acknowledging that they accepted millions of dollars from Freeport-McMoRan’s Indonesian subsidiary PT Freeport to provide security for the miner’s operations in Papua, Indonesia. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bans companies from paying foreign officials to do or omit to do an act in violation of his or her lawful duty.

Police personnel providing security for Freeport-McMoRan operations in Papua have recently played a highly controversial role in a strike by some 10,000 miners. This includes firing on strikers during a demonstration on October 10, killing two and injuring eight others.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc. (FMCG, NYSE: FCX) is a mining company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona that operates in a number of countries. USW represents some 260 workers at Freeport-McMoRan’s Chino mine in New Mexico.

The USW is the largest industrial union in North America and has 850,000 members in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. It represents workers employed in metals, rubber, chemicals, paper, oil refining, airlines, atomic energy and the service sector.

Religious extremists get a light tap from the court in Ahmadiyah mob murder

2011-11-01T14:01:00.000+07:00

I still cannot get one sound from the Feb. 6 Cikeusik mob attack on a handful of Ahmadiyah followers out of my head. At some point the shouting and mayhem, which millions have seen on YouTube, seems to subside as a lifeless body in the mud is beaten with wooden staves. There follows a series of sickening wet slaps against the corpse as a crowd shouts in approval.

But that man and two other victims were not murdered, according to prosecutors who chose the lightest possible charges to throw up against the clearly identifiable suspects in the Banten province attack. On Thursday, a court made it official, handing out sentences of three to six months to 12 men accused of leading and carrying out the assault.

Dani bin Misra, a 17-year-old, smashed a victimâ€™s skull with a stone; he was charged with manslaughter and got three months. The leader of the mob of about 1,000 people who attacked 20 Ahmadis, Idris bin Mahdani, was convicted of illegal possession of a machete and got five months and 15 days in jail.

In other words, murder â€” organized, premeditated and captured on video â€” is not much more of a crime than stealing a bunch of bananas. In Indonesia, it appears, you can get away with murder, as long as the killing is done in the name of religion.

Prosecutors actually recommended light sentences because they said Ahmadiyah members partly provoked the attack by being in the village and then compounded their error by filming and distributing videos of the attack. This is a bit like saying a woman is to blame for being raped because she wore a skirt.

The sad truth is that Indonesia, despite its progress on so many fronts, still allows preachers of hate to foment criminal acts against others. In this upside-down world, Ahmadiyah followers can be killed for their belief that their prophet came after Mohammed. They are fair game.

Thursdayâ€™s court verdict seems likely to spur still more mob terror since the crime carries virtually no punishment and the government does so little to speak out against such heinous acts.

This is a frightening black mark on a nation that prides itself on being a bastion of tolerance guided by Pancasila, whose first pillar is religious freedom and whose second is Kemanusiaan yang Adil dan Beradab, which states that all people should be treated with dignity as creatures of God.

This is not the first time such an outrage has gone virtually unpunished. Just two days after the Cikeusik killings, a mob in Temanggung, Central Java, ran riot in reaction to a blasphemy verdict. They were angry because a Christian accused of defaming Islam got only a five-year sentence â€” mind you, he killed no one.

That mob burned churches and buildings and injured bystanders. Most of the accused were given five-month sentences by a Semarang court last month. The ring leader, a cleric, got a yearâ€™s sentence, which was reduced by several months for time served.

What is so deeply alarming about the Cikeusik verdicts and other outrages, however, is the absence of reasoned and consistent leadership from the top reaches of government to set a tone of tolerance in the face of criminal acts committed in the name of religion.

The lesson to the people is that such attacks are understandable; the victims learn that they are without rights.

Of course, I do not mean to suggest that the government interfere in individual court cases but rather that it has a duty to uphold tolerance and speak up for the rule of law.

We already have the current spectacle of former Democratic Party official Muhammad Nazaruddin and others accused in various corruption cases fleeing from justice, seemingly with ease. Add to that mobs of thugs basically running free because prosecutors refuse to see their crimes for what they are and it looks as if we have no meaningful and consistent laws.

Last week I was in Tokyo, one of Asiaâ€™s most sophisticated cities, and an elegant woman running a gift shop asked me where I lived. â€œIndonesia!â€� she repeated with approval. â€œThat country is very good. Japan is going down.â€� Imagine hearing that a decade ago.

The impression that Indonesia is a major success story is increasingly widespread. But donâ€™t take it for granted. Mob rule, disrespect for the law and courts that treat killers with kid gloves are also still part of Indonesiaâ€™s story.

I hope the sound of a club beating against dead flesh does not one day drown out the good news that is far more prevalent in Indonesia.

TNI always evasive and denied has shotfired the people of Papua

2011-10-21T11:51:00.001+07:00

THE military chief of West Papua's Jayapura district last night denied his troops had shot into a crowd of pro-independence activists and killed at least one.

Major General Erfi Triassunu said TNI troops and police had only fired into the air to break up the Third Papuan People's Congress after an activist began reading a declaration of independence from Indonesia.

According to two reporters at the scene at the Lapangan Zakeus sports ground in Jayapura, police and soldiers broke up the congress's final session, scattering about 5000 activists and taking away at least 100 under arrest.

They included Papua Customary Council chairman Forkorus Yaboisembut, who had had just been elected president of a "transitional government for the Republic of West Papua", according to the Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy.

Trouble erupted when he led the reading of the declaration and raised a banned Morning Star flag.

However, the reporters did not confirm initial claims that shots had been fired into the crowd or that at least one activist had been killed.

The final day of the three-day congress, whose organisers had been denied the use of Cendrawasi University by authorities, opened under ominous circumstances.

Amid authorities' claims that the congress of tribal and community groups with the aim of advancing the political and civil rights of indigenous Papuans had been hijacked by militants, hundreds of armed police and soldiers imposed heavy security around the venue yesterday morning.

Organisers said the TNI and police presence scared away thousands from yesterday's session.

One journalist told the Jakarta Globe that chaos erupted as some leaders began reading a declaration of Papuan independence. Firing warning shots into the air, according to General Erfi, troops and police moved in to break up the gathering.

According to the journalist, shots also appeared to be fired from nearby hills. Initial reports suggested at least one person was killed and others were wounded, with West Papuan Media's Nick Chesterfield saying his sources were unsure how many were hurt.

"We are getting reports that the unarmed community security guards were shot and that several women who tried to help them were also shot," he said.

"Others were apparently beaten by police and the troops."

A witness claimed that the military and police then stormed the congress and "killed many, many people".

"They just started shooting all the people, and chasing them into the jungle," the witness said.

Australian diplomats said they were getting "mixed messages" from the provincial capital.

A spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd last night said she was unaware of people being shot at the gathering.

General Erfi denied there were any casualties. "Now it's been concluded, it's already all right. We had heard that there was an indication of subversion, to change the state ideology," he said.

Tensions in the province have heightened in recent years.

Last year, the Indonesian government acknowledged a video showing six soldiers torturing two West Papuans. The video, which came into circulation on YouTube, caused an international furore and refocused attention on West Papuan separatism and the Indonesian army's record of brutal suppression of such movements.

Indonesia Sukuk demand Many foreign investors

2011-10-18T18:17:00.000+07:00

Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country and potentially the largest market for Islamic finance, has received a major boost to press ahead with the issuance of its proposed benchmark global Islamic trust certificates (sukuk) which will be issued by Perusahaan Penerbit SBSN Indonesia II (PPSI II), a special purpose vehicle (SPV) on behalf of the Ministry of Finance of Indonesia.

The issuance, which has been assigned a “BB+” long-term foreign currency issue rating by Standard and Poor's and a provisional rating of Ba1 by Moody's Investors Service, was subject to the right market conditions, especially pricing. In fact, there was talk of a delay because of the volatility in the global markets as a result of the European sovereign debt crisis and the economic recession especially in the West where economies are struggling even to achieve a 1 percent GDP growth rate.

The boost came from neighboring Malaysia, where Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the country's sovereign wealth fund (SWF), a few days ago successfully issued a 3-year benchmark offshore Renminbi 500 million sukuk in Hong Kong, the first sukuk to be issued in the Chinese currency. The so-called Dim Sum Sukuk was supposed to have been issued in September but the Malaysian SWF delayed the offering because of difficult market conditions and because it could not get the required yields it was aiming for.

The fact that the transactions was 3.6 times oversubscribed and priced at a tight 2.9 percent, suggests that good quality Islamic papers especially from a selected Asian countries remain attractive to investors starved of quality conventional counterparts and are to a certain extent insulated from the vagaries and volatility of the international markets.

Even in the important Middle East markets, local arrangers are seeking mandates for sukuk, especially offshore offerings, outside the region, where local issuances are largely the order of the day in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. At the same time, GCC issuers are increasingly seeking to raise funds through sukuk issuances in the south east Asian markets, which are considered more stable and sukuk investment friendly.

Bhimantara Widyajala, director at the Debt Management Office of the Indonesian Ministry of Finance, confirmed that the country is proceeding with plans to issue a benchmark global sukuk, but only at the right time and market conditions. HSBC, Citigroup and Standard Chartered are reportedly mandated to arrange the issuance, which could be up to $1 billion, depending on market demand.

The rating rationale for the proposed sukuk, according to Standard and Poor's (S&P), is based on the fact that, under the related lease and repurchase agreement between the Government and PPSI-II, the government is obliged to make all payments to PPSI-II to ensure that the issuer has sufficient funds to make full and timely periodic distribution and principal payments to certificate holders.

"We rate this issue on par with the sovereign's commercial financial obligations. This is because, in our view, the sovereign's contractual commitment gives the government a strong incentive to treat its obligations to PPSI-II under this transaction pari passu with its other obligations, including conventional debt. We consider that governments may sometimes in stressful fiscal situations consider rent or lease obligations as subordinate to bonds or bank loans. However, in this case, we expect a default by the government on its obligations under this transaction would likely trigger a default on the certificates. We believe that the government will consider the performance of the certificates as being equally important as the performance of its conventional debt," said S&P in its rating statement.

At the same time Moody's stressed that its rating of the proposed sukuk reflects Indonesia's sovereign rating which has been supported by increasingly robust domestic demand over the past few years, and which has helped to shield the economy from the global financial crisis. "In the ensuing recovery, the pickup in commodity prices has further bolstered to the economic outlook. Overall, growth looks to be sustainable and has not been accompanied by significant overheating pressures. In addition, government finances continue to be managed conservatively with deficits averaging well below 2 percent of GDP since 2001," added Moody's.

Indonesia's continuing progress toward facilitating Islamic finance is further underlined by the launch last week of its own Commodity Murabaha trading platform at the Jakarta Futures Exchange (JFX) in the presence of Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu. The platform is a collaborative effort between JFX, Bank Indonesia (the central bank), the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Board and the National Syariah Board of the Ulema Council of Indonesia (MUI).

Indonesia is one of the world's largest suppliers of primary commodities and it is not surprising that the underlying contracts for the Commodity Murabaha platform are palm oil futures and its derivatives such as olefins and metals. The platform, if it develops according to international best practice, may eventually prove to be a rival to Bursa Malaysia's Bursa Siq Al Sila platform, Bahrain's Bursa Al Bait platform and the warrants issued on the London Metals Exchange (LME), which has traditionally been the “backbone” of Commodity Murabaha trading, primarily used for short-term liquidity management and for servicing investment and current accounts at Islamic banks.

A freeport mine worker killed when demanding higher wages

2011-10-12T04:26:00.000+07:00

NDONESIAN security forces opened fire on thousands of striking workers at Freeport-McMoRan' s gold and copper mine early yesterday, killing one man and critically wounding six, a union official said.

Police said it was too early to comment and officials from Arizona-based Freeport were preparing an official statement.

Workers at the Grasberg mine in West Papua kicked off a strike on September 15, demanding pay increases to $17.50 to $43 an hour from the present $2.10 to $3.50 an hour. About 90 per cent of the mine's 12,000 employees are taking part.

Union leader Manuel Maniambo said thousands of striking workers headed to the mine in the mountains by bus and by foot to try to stop replacement workers.

When security forces tried to block them, they became angry, throwing rocks and yelling insults, he said.

The troops opened fire, killing one worker and leaving another hospitalised in critical condition, Mr Maniambo said.

A man named Hanseba died in hospital of gunshot wounds and six others were seriously injured. It remains unconfirmed whether Hanseba is an employee of Freeport.

When workers walked off their jobs for eight days in July - also over low wages and the dismissal of union leaders - the mine suffered production losses of 4 million pounds of copper and 7500 ounces of gold daily. That affected the company's revenue by $30 million a day, analysts said, and the same was expected this time.

Demonstrators had reportedly demanded that Freeport halt its operations until the dispute was resolved and asked to meet Freeport's Indonesian chief executive, Armando Mahler.

Instead the person that came down to the protest site was the company's vice-president for community relations, Demianus Dimara. Mr Dimara was not able to hold any discussions with demonstrators because of the clash.

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2011-10-11T16:19:00.000+07:00

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Fails threatening SBY, Julia Gillard pretentious favor to SBY

2011-10-07T04:35:00.000+07:00

JULIA Gillard is preparing for her first contact with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono since the live cattle row.

The Prime Minister is organising a telephone call to Dr Yudhoyono ahead of leaders' summits in Cannes and Bali next month and the visit of US President Barack Obama to both Australia and Indonesia.

Ms Gillard has not spoken to Dr Yudhoyono since the Australian government suspended live cattle shipments without warning in June after ABC1's Four Corners' coverage of the abuse of Australian cattle in Indonesian abattoirs.

The failure to alert Jakarta to the suspension of the $330 million trade damaged relations between Australia and Indonesia.

Ms Gillard also caused resentment in Indonesia last year by announcing her plan to establish an offshore processing centre for asylum-seekers in East Timor, without alerting Jakarta to the significant change to policy.

As she prepared to repair leader-to-leader relations, she welcomed the beginning of the Indonesia-Australia dialogue in Jakarta, which Dr Yudhoyono had suggested to develop the strategic partnership.

"The dialogue will promote a better understanding between Australia and Indonesia at the people-to-people level," the Prime Minister said.

Unrest at the public Internet Networking of Indonesia Community

2011-10-04T10:53:00.000+07:00

IN THE aftermath of last week's suicide bombing by a rogue Islamist of a church in the Central Java city of Solo, messages flew around the social networking site Twitter urging followers to go to an extremist website.

There, on arrahmah.com, was an article condemning Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for his strong and quickly delivered words against the violent act in Solo, contrasting it with a supposedly weak response to the alleged attacks on Muslims by Christians in Ambon.

It continued with a litany of falsehoods, including claims that a village had been burnt down and that thousands of Muslims remained in mosques in Ambon, seeking refuge from the crusader hordes.

In two days some 20,000 people had retweeted the message. Disturbingly, it was just the latest in a series of highly inflammatory tweets, SMS and Facebook postings sowing the seeds of disharmony and promoting terrorism in Indonesia.

Last month, there were two striking examples of the power of social media to spread misinformation and promote conflict.

On September 11, a deadly riot broke out in Ambon, an island in Maluku in eastern Indonesia. Seven people died and scores of homes and vehicles were damaged after rumours spread by SMS, Twitter and Facebook that a Muslim had been captured and tortured to death by Christians. In fact, he died in a traffic accident.

Three days later, in Makassar, a city in South Sulawesi, a mentally ill man went on a stabbing rampage killing three people. The man happened to be a Christian and within hours, SMS and Twitter messages were warning of co-ordinated Christian attacks on Muslims.

Two Christian men were stabbed in retaliation and more than 1000 people fled to a police school to seek refuge from Christian attacks that never occurred.

Indonesian police yesterday said they had arrested a wanted terror suspect, Ben Asri, in connection with the Solo bombing.

The Indonesian archipelago has a poor sea safety record

2011-09-29T09:56:00.001+07:00

A STAMPEDE on a docked ferry in Indonesia's East Java has left at least eight dead and dozens injured, an official says.

More than 500 passengers panicked when a truck overheated and caught fire around dawn this morning aboard the KM Kirana IX, docked at the Tanjung Perak port in the provincial capital of Surabaya.

"The passengers heard there was a fire and they all panicked and ran off the boat," Disaster Management Agency head Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

"Eight people have died and others have been taken to hospital."

The vessel's owner, Bambang Haryo, told Metro TV that part of the deck was burned but that the fire did not cause any serious damage.

"We quickly extinguished the fire, following standard safety procedures, by activating the sprinklers as soon as we detected it," he said.

On Monday, another ferry serving the same route to the city of Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan province on Indonesian Borneo collided with a tugboat and caught fire, killing three and injuring more than 100.

The Indonesian archipelago of more than 17,000 islands has a poor sea safety record, and fatal accidents are common.

Last week, 13 people were killed when a boat sank off East Java, and 25 were killed when a boat sank off the resort island of Bali.

Six Indonesian pirates arrested Malaysia

2011-09-22T10:57:00.002+07:00

Malaysian maritime authorities said they arrested six Indonesians attempting to rob a ship in the Strait of Malacca, the latest in a surge of piracy attacks in the strategic waterway.The suspects were spotted by Malaysian patrols early Sunday morning as they tried to board a merchant vessel off southern Johor state near Singapore, Maritime Enforcement Agency chief Admiral Zulkifli Abu Bakar said.

"The pirates realized they were spotted and tried to flee on their boat but our patrol vessel gave chase and fired several warning shots before intercepting the pirate ship in Malaysian waters," he told AFP.He said the pirates appeared to have come from the nearby Indonesian island of Batam and had gathered in the area intending to rob three ships. An investigation was under way.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) in June sent an alert to ships traversing the area, warning of a heightened piracy risk following the hijacking of three tugboats and a barge this year.The global maritime watchdog has said the waterway - wedged between the coast of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula - has seen a surge in reported attacks by armed pirates, with at least 41 incidents since January.

"We are pleased that the Malaysian authorities have arrested these pirates. It shows their commitment and seriousness in dealing with this menace," Noel Choong, head of the IMB's Kuala Lumpur-based piracy reporting centre, told AFP. "Strong enforcement will deter pirates from attacking more ships in the area," he added.

Is can Indonesia Risen?

2011-09-21T12:15:00.003+07:00

A regular but prestigious conference on Indonesia will be held in Canberra, Australia, on September 30-October 1. The Indonesia Update Conference 2011 of the Australian National University will host "Indonesia's Place in the World". A number of prominent academics, mostly from Australia and Indonesia, are scheduled to speak. The topics range from updates on politics and economics, Indonesia in regional and global economic and trade arrangements and "Indonesia's Rise", to considering Indonesia as a democratic Muslim power.

The title of the event itself is intriguing. Certainly, assumptions over Indonesia's place in the world will be varied. Optimists would argue that Indonesia has risen into a higher stage of the international arena, particularly after the elevation of Group of Twenty (G-20) interactions to summit level in 2008. Indonesia is one of the G-20's developing country members. Pessimists say that the country is still quite far from being considered as influential within global political-economic spheres since it has to cope with the same set of problems commonly faced by developing countries. Before embarking further on such arguments, it is worth recalling a previous conference titled "Where is Asia Headed?" held at the same university just few months ago.

In this conference only China, India (and certainly) Australia were often mentioned by the panelists. These countries are considered as the drivers of politics and economy, not only in Asia but also in the global arena. They are even predicted to become the centers of world economic gravity in the future. The question is: where is Indonesia? The country's leaders and politicians, government officials, diplomats, or anyone who belong to the "optimists group" would not be pleased with the reality of that conference. But realistically it should be acknowledged that Indonesia's international posture is not really that high. Expectations and reality are not that close.

From the viewpoint of "power", Indonesia's capacity is not yet calculated as being significant. In the realm of international relations, scholars tend to agree on three categorizations of states' power capacity: great power (GP), middle power (MP), and small power (SP). Though there are still debates on which countries belong to which category, there is a common understanding that the GP countries are the United States, China, United Kingdom, France and Russia. Besides their political and economic dominance of the global arena, these countries have special status in the United Nations Security Council with their permanent seats and veto rights. Countries often categorized as middle power (MP) include Australia, Canada and Japan.

The reasons for this categorization are the nations' advanced political-economic stature as well as their significant contribution to international cooperation and development. India and Brazil were recently considered as MP because of their rise in the global arena, particularly with the emerging notion of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China). As for the remaining countries outside GP and MP, they are often categorized as an SP. Back to our initial question: which is Indonesia's category? Certainly it cannot be categorized as a GP. But deeming Indonesia as an SP may not be entirely correct either. Indonesia should actually be categorized as a MP. A number of academics, such as Carsten Holbraad (Middle Powers in International Politics, 1984) and Jonathan H Ping (Middle Power Statecraft: Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Asia-Pacific, 2005) have already argued that Indonesia deserves to be categorized as an MP. Their arguments are based on statistical data and "statecraft and perceived power" methodologies.

Furthermore, the shift of global power from the Group of Eight (G8) to the G-20 is another strong point in favor of categorizing Indonesia as an MP. Due to the strategic elevation of G-20, from the levels of ministerial in 1999 to the head of states/governments in 2008, the G-20 has declared itself as the"premier forum for international economic cooperation" . As a consequence, countries like South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia are unofficially categorized as MPs (Seonjou Kang, "Middle Powers in Global Governance", in Tyler dan Hofmeister, Going Global: Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea and South Africa in International Affairs, 2011). In other words, Indonesia definitely deserves to be acknowledged, or even perceive itself, as an MP. Indonesia also deserves to perform more aggressively in the international arena since its political-economic strength meets the "requirements" or expectations. The question is, why in reality Indonesia is not considered that "high" as an MP, at least for the Asian region? This is likely because the country is too much occupied with internal challenges. Indonesia unquestionably has the potential given its abundant natural and human resources. The crux of the matter is on their management. To this end, fingers will be pointed at the politicians, government, and the judicial apparatus (the so-called "Trias Politica" in political science terms).

The high rate of corruption and the lack of legal enforcement are deemed as the main source of problems that holds systemic causes. Most of the country's potential is being wiped out, or at least covered up, by these phenomena. In this regard, what the country should further consider, is to first re-emphasize the direction on where it is actually headed. There is no doubt that the internal challenges are countless, but definitely the most daunting ones can be identified. For example: combating corruption, enforcing law, and reducing poverty. (Note: the World Bank states that the 2009 percentage number of Indonesian people who still live under the poverty line is 14.2%. It is such a staggering number as the annual economic growth merely achieves less than 7%). But who shall take the initiative? The most likely answer is the government as it holds the legitimacy and authority that can exert essential roles in resetting the country's path. It is unlikely to come from the politicians at the House of Representatives or the judicial apparatus. From a number of surveys, the House and the judicial bodies are often considered as the most corrupt institutions in the country. Certainly the government itself is not free of corruption allegations, but at least it is the last hope for people as it has the governing mandate.

If the country's direction is re-emphasized, then the moves of government must focus on that direction. In other words, any political and technical issues within the government shall be managed within the corridor of combating corruption, legal enforcement and poverty alleviation. Even in the area of foreign policy, where the country's international posture is mostly crafted, the "machines" need to focus in the re-emphasized direction. Third, when most of the things are already on track, slowly but surely Indonesia can project further its international profile. In this regard, it is worth underlining that the profile will follow the achievements, not vice versa. Arguably it is only after those achievements being reached that the country could fully subscribe to the prestigious club called the "middle power".

2000 Indonesian people's became bumps in Saudi Arabia

2011-09-20T10:27:00.001+07:00

A large number of Indonesian nationals, including men, women and children, gathered outside their country’s consulate Saturday, demanding immediate repatriation from the Kingdom.

Security vehicles and officers were called to maintain order.Several women, including some elderly ones, were seen sitting on the curb near the building and by the mosque opposite the consulate.Jeddah police spokesman Brig. Misfer Al-Juaid confirmed the demonstration had taken place.“The people gathering in the area are overstayers, but we haven’t received any security concerns on the nature of their presence,” he said.

Al-Juaid added they included Indonesians who had overstayed on Umrah visas as well as those who carried expired work visa permits.Less than a year ago, a similar situation occurred in front of the Indonesian Consulate in Jeddah.In April, the Indonesian government sent a ship to Jeddah to take home more than 2,000 workers, mostly housemaids who were stranded in the Kingdom.

The group included runaways and Haj and Umrah overstayers, according to Indonesian officials.Maj. Muhammad Al-Hussein, spokesman of the Passport Department in Makkah province, urged effective collaborations between foreign missions and local authorities to ease deportation procedures and ensure their citizens did not overstay. A source at the Jeddah Passport Department told Arab News on Saturday: “Part of the reason why the deportation of some overstayers found on the streets is delayed is that some of them hold no legal documents, like an iqama or a passport. This requires authorities to take additional steps to ensure their identity.”

The complex mystery of Nazaruddin which to be revealed

2011-08-25T12:49:00.000+07:00

An extraordinary letter apparently written last week by Muhammad Nazaruddin, the former fugitive and onetime treasurer of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party, is shaking the country’s politics to the core ahead of 2014 national elections.

The increasingly murky Nazaruddin affair does not augur well for international investors who may have hoped that the country’s rising economic prowess would result in an equally rational political and governmental environment. The letter was made public by OC Kaligis, Nazaruddin’s lawyer, saying in effect that Nazaruddin would shut up about crimes committed by the Democrats if Yudhoyono would guarantee his family’s safety, leading to the obvious if unproven conclusion that the party’s leaders are culpable in as-yet-undisclosed offenses.

Analysts say it smacks of a cover-up that could wreck the part y. Founded in 2001, the Democrat Party came into power in the 2004 national elections, almost solely on Yudhoyono’s popularity as a reformer who ran afoul of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri while serving in her cabinet. Those who look most guilty are the young reformers Yudhoyono brought into power with him, particularly Party Chairman Anas Urbaningrum, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Marzuki Alie, and Youth and Sports Minister, Andi Mallarangeng. All of this has left Yudhoyono looking dazed, issuing statements that the party should be cleaned up but not saying how. Bloggers and critics have been raising suspicions that members of Yudhoyono’s own family might be involved in the corruption, causing him to denounce the media.

Looking ahead less than three years to national elections, the second and third-biggest parties Golkar, headed by tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), headed by Megawati are the likely beneficiaries, although neither seems to know just how to capitalize on the Democrats’ woes given that a large part of the mess turns on shady finances that are common to all Indonesian political parties. Bakrie remains deeply unpopular for a long string of reasons, not the least of which was the Lapindo Brantas gas well blowout in Surabaya five years ago that created a stinking mud lake that has inundated scores of villages. Megawati is considered to be a spent force and the PDI-P rudderless. Both parties are regarded as deeply corrupt. One long-shot beneficiary could be Prabowo Subianto, the former son-in-law of the strongman Suharto and one-time head of Indonesia’s special forces, Kopassus, who during East Timor’s independence fight was accused of involvement in murder, rape and plunder. He heads Gerindra, a small party, but served as Megawati’s running mate in the 2009 election.

If any of them can slip into the vacuum created by the Democrats’ expected implosion, it could signal that Indonesia is about to return to the dark days of business-dominated politics after a brief interregnum in which Yudhoyono allowed the ousted finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the opportunity to try to clean up the government. She has said that she was driven from government by Bakrie before she made much progress. Bakrie was accused at that point of evading more than US$1 billion in taxes on three of his companies. Although Sri Mulyani has been proposed as a presidential candidate, she lacks any meaningful party structure. Optimists point to the fact that Yudhoyono’s own Democratic Party held fewer than 3 percent of the seats in the national legislature when he started his first race for the presidency. But Yudhoyono at that point tied his fortunes to Golkar by making Jusuf Kalla, then the head of the party, his vice presidential running mate.

There is currently no reform party in Indonesia big enough to carry Sri Mulyani to the polls, although her supporters have been courting the Democrats for months in search of a miracle. She is also outside the country, working as one of three managing directors of the World Bank, and has not said she would return. Nazaruddin’s letter caps a long string of incidents surrounding his flight from Indonesia in May after meeting with the president and other officials, the last of which was House Speaker Marzuki. Nazaruddin was able to leave Indonesia on his own passport just days ahead of an immigration hold order requested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) over millions dollars in bribes paid to build the athletes’ village in Palembang for the upcoming Southeast Asian Games. That raised suspicions that the Democrats wanted him as far away as possible from the clutches of the KPK. After spending weeks texting, tweeting and Skyping journalists with a list of specific allegations against Anas and other top party members, Nazaruddin was arrested on Aug. 7 by Colombian immigration officials on orders from Interpol in Cartagena, a resort city on the northeast coast of Colombia.

The Colombians immediately agreed to his extradition. After his arrest, instead of putting him on a commercial flight with an escort back to Jakarta, the government chartered a 12-passenger Gulfstream executive jet for the equivalent of US$470,000. The delegation sent to pick him up included a flock of law enforcement officials from agencies whose honesty has long been questioned. It did not include his lawyer. The aircraft finally landed in Jakarta 17 hours after its scheduled arrival on Aug. 13 after supposedly stopping six times in such places as Senegal and Congo despite the fact that the plane’s 12,000 km range meant it could easily have made it back on a single pit stop. It is a mystery what took place during those six stops, He was then bustled off to jail and has since appeared before the KPK, which is not only looking into bribes over the Southeast Asian Games but another 35 government projects at several other ministries worth a combined total of Rp 6.04 trillion, (US$706.33 million). He has since said he can’t remember anything at all, but then said through Kaligis, his lawyer, that he would send letters to several NGOs and the press although Kaligis didn’t say what would be in the letters. Kaligis told reporters Nazaruddin doesn’t trust the handling of the cases by the KPK.

Kaligis showed reporters the letter to Yudhoyono after Nazaruddin's questioning at KPK on Thursday. In it, Nazaruddin wrote, “I beg you to immediately sentence me without my having to undergo any court hearings to defend my rights. I am willing to be imprisoned for years as long as you can promise to provide peace of mind for my family, especially for my wife and children.” The KPK has since announced that Nazaruddin’s wife, Neneng Sri Wahyuni, is wanted by Interpol as a suspect for acting as a broker in a case involving a Rp 3.8 billion solar power project at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration. At last report, she was believed to be headed for Kuala Lumpur, where the couple’s two children currently live.

Winning the Transition with Sri Mulyani Indrawati

2011-08-09T11:06:00.001+07:00

Is the Arab Spring turning into a gloomy autumn? With brutal krackdowns in Syria, a bloody civil war in Libya, and Yemen teetering on the brink of chaos, the number of sceptics is growing.

Although Egypt and Tunisia's pro-democracy movements achieved rapid regime change, uncertainties remain in those countries, too. After a brief period of hope, many observers now wonder whether the region is capable of producing viable, and economically vibrant, democracies.Revolutions and their aftermaths, of course, are always fluid and fickletimes, and the outcome is often perched on a knife's edge. Bridging thevast gap between high expectations and the reality of limited budgets and capabilities is a test in itself. Redressing past injustice and building an economy that offers opportunity to all are major challenges as well, fraught with volatility, uncertainty, and the dangers of political opportunism.But transitions are also times of great opportunity. In the 1990s, I wasamong those Indonesians who demanded and celebrated the departure of our own autocrat, Suharto, and I joined the new government when he left.

Many observers predicted that Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, would be unable to sustain democracy and would ultimately decline into chaos. The task ahead of us was daunting. But weproved the sceptics wrong, and learned some fundamental lessons.Perhaps most importantly, we learned that there is no one-size-fits- all solution for democratisation. Each of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa will face unique challenges, which will have to be addressed on their own terms. Even so, they all must make a real and symbolic break with the past. The new authorities must send strong signals that the old ways are finished.Change must be formally manifested, with new laws that are widely publicised. Legislation that empowers citizens with freedom of expression, free and independent elections, and freedom of association is crucial, and it must be made clear to the public that no one is abovethe law. Anything less will undermine the transition.Moreover, corruption is the bane of development everywhere, so new governments should move fast to establish institutions and procedures tofight it.

Transparency and accountability are powerful ideas with near-universal support, which means that new leaders should not give up when the fight becomes difficult. Civil-society organisations, local communities, representatives of the poor and vulnerable, and women play avital role in this regard, and they should be included at every level of decision-making.In Indonesia, we signed a hundred laws in less than 18 months, coveringeverything from media freedom to elections, corruption, decentralisation, and anti-trust rules. We ratified new public-finance legislation and ensured the independence of the country's central bank.New leaders must also expect and manage setbacks.

In post-revolutionary times, expectations are high, and the obstacles to meeting them are enormous. I know from personal experience that we did not always have the luxury of getting the best outcomes. We had to compromise and settlefor the best possible results.Security threats are among the most serious setbacks in transitions. Nationalistic sentiment is strong, and politicians and interest groups can exploit it. Often, the security forces are holdovers from the old regime, and there is no independent judicial system. Reforms will take time, and the old bureaucracies may not be able to implement them.

In Indonesia, we used various innovations to work around such dilemmas. For example, we appointed an independent judge to take over the bankruptcy and corruption courts, because career judges were too tainted. Likewise, when we started cash-for-work programmes as part ofour pro-poor agenda, we asked communities to run these initiatives.More broadly, new leaders are well advised to ensure that the economy performs well. It is important to restore economic activity and create afavourable environment for entrepreneurs, particularly small and medium-size businesses, which constitute the main engine of job creation. The recent revolutions, it should be recalled, started with the self-immolation of a Tunisian fruit vendor, who was harassed and insulted by the authorities.But economic success without accountability and social inclusion is not sustainable, and new governments often must face tough choices in order to protect the poor and vulnerable. They might have to abolish mis-targeted subsidies to free up resources for more targeted and efficient anti-poverty and job-creation programmes.In Indonesia, we had to draw a line between the very poor and the near-poor. We could not afford to raise salaries or provide subsidies for everybody. Our help had to be targeted.

So, while we helped the neediest, we excluded others who were not poor enough to benefit. This was a tough and unpopular choice.Finally, countries in transition need support - not only money, but alsotechnical know-how to implement highly complex reforms. When I became Indonesia's finance minister, I had 64,000 employees. But when we had tomodernise our tax system, we could not find the required expertise anywhere in our country.Yes, we needed external assistance, but we never surrendered "ownership"of the reform process; we made it work for us.

If we Indonesians had not been in charge of our own transition, it could easily have failed. That lesson, too, is one that all countries in transition should bear inmind.

Saudi Arabia has shown a gesture of support and friendship to Indonesia

2011-07-21T10:27:00.001+07:00

Saudi Arabia has shown a gesture of support and friendship to Indonesia by sparing a housemaid from being beheaded and repatriating her to Jakarta.

The news comes at a time when a high-powered delegation from Indonesia is holding talks with the officials of the Ministry of Labor here since Tuesday in an effort to work out a compromise formula to boost relations in the manpower sector and to defuse the crisis in the process.

This was disclosed by Tatang Budie Utama Razak, director for Protection of Indonesian Citizens and Legal Entities in Indonesia, on Wednesday.Razak, who arrived with the 12-member delegation from Jakarta to participate in the talks with Saudi officials, confirmed that Darsem Binti Dawud Tawar, 26, arrived in Jakarta on Wednesday morning and was received by her family members, friends and several Indonesian officials.Darsem, from Subang, West Java, was convicted of murder by a Saudi court in 2009 and was sentenced to death for killing her employer, who allegedly attempted to rape her. The housemaid was granted pardon by the victim's family after the Indonesian government paid about SR2 million in blood money on June 25.

The victim's family forgave Darsem on Jan. 7 this year, but required her to pay the blood money within six months. The Indonesian government, on behalf of Darsem, paid the blood money well before the July 7 deadline.Razak thanked the Saudi and Indonesian officials, especially Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman, for their efforts to solve the case.In a press statement, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said "Thank God, Darsem has returned in good condition, and this is the result of our collective efforts on the Indonesian president's instruction, but we still have a huge task ahead of us.

"Asked about the outcome of the meeting between Saudi and Indonesian officials after the crisis started following the execution of a housemaid in the holy city of Makkah, Razak said: "There is renewed interest on both sides to continue negotiations on issues affecting our relations in manpower sector."He pointed out that the ongoing talks had been organized within the framework of a joint working committee entrusted with the task of reviewing the situation.

The Saudi side in the talks was led by Abdul Wahid Al-Humaid, deputy minister of labor.The two sides, Razak said, had discussed the legal framework for the protection of female workers.He also pointed out that the families of the victims had pardoned six other female workers facing death sentences in Saudi Arabia. The two sides are working to pave the way for the release of the six migrant workers, said Razak, adding that the Indonesian government has made arrangements for a 200-hour mandatory training session for every female worker willing to travel abroad for work.Saudi Arabia is home to over 1 million Indonesian migrant workers. About 90 percent of them are domestic helps.

Indonesia Population will blow out

2011-07-13T14:14:00.000+07:00

A 40-year-old West Java villager who goes by the single name Deni has only two children, a considerable change from his own parents. He has seven siblings. He thus illustrates the change that has taken place over the last four decades in Indonesia as the country's family planning program and changing cultural mores have caused birth rates to fall dramatically.

As World Population Day approaches on July 11, Indonesia's extraordinary success in cutting its population growth is a lesson for a world whose total numbers are on course to soar to as high as 9.5 billion by 2050. The key to Indonesia's success has been its National Family Planning Coordination Board, known by its Indonesian initials BKKBN, which worked together with the United States Agency for International Development to produce the results. The program got underway in the 1970s under the late strongman Suharto who, whatever his shortcomings, recognized that a population explosion could wreck his country. Suharto allowed his planners to put together a strong and effective family planning organization. Today the program is recognized internationally for its success in lowering average family size, increasing contraceptive use and improving the health of women and children. As one of eight siblings, it is obvious that Deni parents were unaware of family planning or even the fact that families could regulate the number of children they could have. Even if they knew it, it was difficult and expensive to find contraceptives. Deni's experience is thus strikingly different from that of from his parents. He and his millions of fellow Indonesians live in a time when people are not only aware that they can regulate their family size but they have relatively easy access to modern contraceptives; when there are many other aspirations than simply having large numbers of children; and when people realize that they can raise their standard of living by having fewer children rather than more. Indonesia today is very different from the Indonesia of the 1960s and even the 1990s. The country's total fertility rate, the rate arrived at by calculating the number of births per woman of childbearing age, has fallen from its 1967 peak of 5.6 births per woman to 2.28 today, just around the replacement rate of 2.2 births per woman. (Although globally the replacement rate is 2.1 births, Indonesia's level is slightly higher because of higher mortality rates.) Nonetheless, because of those vast numbers of births in the previous four decades, and because of dramatically increasing life expectancy, Indonesia's population has soared from 97.1 million in 1961 to 237.6 million in 2010. In 1960, the average Indonesian could expect to live about 38.0 years. By 2005, that had risen to about 69.0 years, an astonishing 31.0 -year increase as health care and better nutrition took effect. The country has experienced a relatively fast demographic transition during the last four decades. The initial high fertility rate meant the population was projected to grow very quickly, with lots of young children who were still dependent on the adult population, making it difficult for Indonesian families to save and invest. The quality of health for children would be damaged by malnutrition and other problems, in turn affecting the quality of the labor force and restricting economic growth. Faced with this gloomy scenario, the government successfully engineered individual behavior so that families saw a large number of children as a burden rather than an asset. The government campaigned on the concept of a two-child family as a happy family. In the 1960s, Indonesians accepted whatever number of children they were going to have, with women producing babies as long as they were in their reproductive ages. But, nowadays, they can make choices on how many children they want -- or they can decide not to have any children at all. Therefore, the current challenge is providing "quality contraception, " giving families all available information about contraceptives, including the side effects. The contraceptives should also be easily accessible and affordable. The issue is no longer to lower fertility, because fertility is already low. Indonesia's fertility is already around replacement level. If fertility continues to go down, and goes much below replacement level, Indonesia will experience a shortage of labour like what some countries such as Singapore, South Korea, and Japan are facing now. These countries need to bring foreigners to fill in the shortage of labour and this "import" of foreigners has resulted in social and political tensions in these countries. It is true that the number of Indonesian population will keep growing though fertility rate is already low. By 2025, Indonesia may have an additionaal 40 million population compared to that in 2010. It is also true to say that the rising number of population may burden development in Indonesia. Nevertheless, this is not population explosion. This is demographic momentum, an echo of the past high fertility. With the continuing low fertility, this demographic momentum will disappear. Coupled with the liberalization of the economy, a rising number of foreigners will come to Indonesia, particularly after 2030. A slowing of the fertility decline may postpone the start of the heavy inflow of foreigners looking for work. The challenge is then how to utilize the still rising numbers. China and India have been seen as rising global economies because of their large numbers, coupled with rising prosperity. Forty years ago, given poor economic development and planning, China's large population was regarded as a liability. Now it is an asset. Can Indonesia do the same? Indonesia's policy makers should not worry overmuch about further reducing fertility. Rather, the country should delay the start of a shortage of young workers projected for about 2030. If possible, it could avoid it by keeping fertility around replacement, as it is now. At the same time, Indonesia should be able to make its rising population an asset in its bid to join the rising world economic powers. Concentrating on quality contraception and transformation of its growing population into an asset is the challenge. Population explosion is no longer an issue.