NEWSBRIEFS
RISKY SHELTER
The prestigious Yap Thiam Hien human rights award went to the
Jesuit priest Sandyawan Sumardi on 10 December 1996. He had
risked imprisonment by sheltering members of the radical activist
group PRD after the government accused them of being responsible
for the 27 July Jakarta riot. Father Sandyawan works with
scavengers at a Jakarta rubbish dump.
Republika 29 November 1996.
JAVA MAN
Archaeologists doing new work on the famous 'Java Man' bone
sites near the Solo River, known since the 1890s, came up with
much younger ages than they expected: 27,000 to 53,000 years.
This could mean that the earlier, smaller-brained Homo Erectus
lived alongside and possibly interbred with its modern successor,
Homo Sapiens, in Java for thousands of years. The result,
scientists say, supports the 'out of Africa' hypothesis of human
origins.
Washington Post 13 December 1996.
SMALL COMFORT
The Japanese government expressed its 'regrets' by offering
Rp 380 million yen (AU$ 4 million) to help Indonesian 'comfort
women' (jugun ianfu) exploited by Japanese soldiers during
World War II. Over ten years, the money would be paid to
Indonesia's Social Welfare Department and used to rehabilitate
private care centres. But hundreds of women expressed
disappointment they would not receive direct payments. Moreover,
by February, none of the promised money had arrived.
Kompas 15 & 17 November 1996, 22 February 1997.
HEALTH WORRIES
Health officials said about 50,000 Indonesians suffer from
leprosy, the third largest number in the world. Patients often
report only when the disease is far advanced.
Deaths among Indonesian women during pregnancy and childbirth
are the highest in ASEAN, according to Unicef. Although
improving, the rate of 650 deaths per 100,000 live births was
four times higher than Vietnam, and 65 times higher than
Singapore.
Antara 17 January 1997; Media Indonesia 17 December
1996.
POWELL POWER?
President Clinton should send a high-powered envoy like Gen
Colin Powell to talk with Indonesian officials about human rights
abuse in East Timor, according to Congress representative Frank
Wolf after a visit to the territory. 'East Timor is at the bottom
of the scale on human rights', he said.
Reuter 23 January 1997.
OFF BUDGET
When is a budget not a budget? When it excludes 'off-budget
financing'. Parliamentarian Tadjuddin Noer said such financing -
as departments generate their own revenue without reporting -
could be three times as high as the formal budget. It made a
mockery of parliamentary supervision, he added. Finance Minister
Mar'ie Muhammad has introduced a Non-Tax State Receipts Bill to
parliament that aims to bring it all into the budget. If
implemented, the budget, this year just over Rp 100 trillion (AU$
50 billion), will balloon.
Kompas 28 January 1997; Suara Merdeka 12 December
1996.
OLYMPIAN LOVE
The first Indonesians ever to win Olympic gold, badminton
players Susi Susanti and Alan Budikusumah, married on 9 February
in a 'Grand Athens Fairytale Wedding' at a 5-star hotel. 1500
Guests at the reception, including Japanese prince and princess
Takamado, were given badminton rackets and shuttlecocks. Popular
Susi and Alan won separate singles gold medals at Barcelona in
1992, and have been in love for over 10 years.
Kyodo 10 February 1996.
TIGERS & SHARKS
Tigers were made extinct in Bali in the 1930s, and in Java in
the 1980s. In Sumatra, only 500 remain, despite national parks
that run the length of the island. The World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF) says 14 are killed by villagers or organised crime every
year. Between 1973 and 1992 Indonesia illegally exported over 4
tons of tiger bones, mostly to South Korea, where they are turned
into 'medicines' and reexported, some to Indonesia.
Indonesia kills more sharks each year than any other nation -
92,900 tons in 1994, double the amount of 1980. The fins go
mostly to insatiable Hong Kong. Most of the 30-70 million sharks
killed around the world each year die unintentionally in fishing
nets. WWF fears the effect on the marine food chain if numbers
of its top predator, the shark, drop drastically.
Kyodo 4 January 1997; Suara Merdeka 6 December 1996.
NOMADS TO TIMOR
The Indonesian Navy has bought 20 second-hand Nomads to add
to the 18 it bought in the 1970s. The Australian Army grounded
the Australian-built aircraft in November 1994 after several
fatal accidents. Indonesia uses them mostly for maritime
surveillance and has had no crashes. A naval air base was opened
in Kupang in January to patrol the joint Indonesian-Australian
oil exploration area in the Timor Sea more intensively.
Kompas 31 January 1997; Reuter 14 November 1996.
ELECTION SNIPPETS
Ahead of parliamentary elections on 29 May:
Golkar ordered 750 singers and 6 million Golkar watches to liven
up its campaign (and keep real issues out of sight? - ed.);
Political parties waged a 'colour war' in Central Java's Solo,
with streets repeatedly changing colour from yellow (Golkar), to
white (a PPP protest), back to yellow, to red and white (Megawati
supporters in PDI), and back to yellow;
The Catholic Church stated it was 'no sin' to refuse to vote;
Former PPP chairman John Naro said he was 'proud' of the nepotism
that characterised the list of candidates this year. The trend
had started, he said, when his own son entered parliament in
1987;
48 Building contractors working for the government in West
Kalimantan complained they had to put 2.5% of the contracted
value into a Golkar fund. (The practice is not limited to
Kalimantan - ed.)
Media Indonesia 18 February 1997; Kontan 27 February 1997;
South China Morning Post 20 February 1997; AFP 28 February 1997;
Suara Merdeka 24 January 1997; Kompas 30 December 1996.
FIRST FRIEND
Bob Hasan, Suharto's long-time Chinese Muslim friend, has
moved to the middle of Indonesia's economy. Following the death
of the president's wife, he has also become the arbiter who keeps
the Suharto children, who have a finger in just about every pie,
in line. The charitable foundation he leads, Nusamba (once, and
perhaps still, controlled by the Suharto family), has invested
heavily in the Freeport mine. It then went for blue-chip car
maker Astra, which Hasan now heads, and finally for the huge
Kalimantan gold prospect, Busang. Two presidential children,
Sigit and Tutut, had been fighting to control Busang, each with
one or more Canadian companies in tow. While the Mining and
Energy Minister looked on, Hasan persuaded Suharto to trust him,
then kicked all but the original Canadian company out, and gave
a good share to Freeport.
Far Eastern Economic Review 20 February 1997; Dow-Jones
Business News 20 February 1997.
GOING NUCLEAR
A law to open the way to nuclear power was passed by
parliament on 26 February. With many parliamentarians opposed to
it, and a vigorous anti-nuclear lobby, the bill had been stuck
for over a year. Some extra safeguards were introduced, but
opponents still pointed to numerous weaknesses, including a poor
liability regime, no plans for wastes, and few guarantees of
independent monitoring. The National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan)
says it may offer aeroplanes or natural gas in a barter with a
possibly Japanese nuclear supplier.
Antara 21 February 1997; Waspada 27 February 1997; Kompas
26 February 1997.
