Mission & Justice

13/8/08

Indonesia’s richest man, Aburizal Bakrie, says a firm linked to his family is not responsible for a massive mud disaster in East Java, but will still pay victims compensation. The cause of the Sidoarjo mud volcano, which has displaced more than 50,000 people, is disputed. Some scientific studies blame drilling by Lapindo Brantas Inc, a firm linked to Mr Bakrie’s family, while Lapindo and Mr Bakrie say an earthquake near Yogyakarta in 2006 triggered the disaster. Mr Bakrie, the country’s chief welfare minister, said Lapindo had been cleared of wrongdoing by two Indonesian courts. The company is paying compensation for the flooded land, houses and factories, and has built new housing for victims.

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14/8/08

The PNG-Indonesian border has been closed to traditional border crossers. Indonesian embassy’s defence attaché Col Pasenga Talilah said the Wutung border post extending to the south were now closed to traditional border crossers and the only people identifying themselves with passports would be allowed to travel back and forth. The tough stance was taken in response to increased illegal activities in the border area. Col Talilah said the PNG Defence Force and the Indonesian military had a hard time trying to monitor movements at the border where alleged smuggling of arms and gold bars were reported. He said that recently 159 OPM (West Papuan Independence Movement) members surrendered their arms to Indonesia near Puchanjaya, pledging to go back to their villages to take part in Indonesia’s development.

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Mark Forbes; 12/8/08

Indonesia notified Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith during talks in Jakarta yesterday of moves to repatriate Papuans granted asylum in Australia. Mr Smith said he was grateful to be consulted but that the return of some of the 43 Papuans who fled claiming persecution in 2006 was a matter between them and Jakarta. The plight of three members of the Australian Bali nine heroin smuggling ring on death row in Indonesia was raised by Mr Smith. He denied their cases were undercut by Canberra not opposing the Bali bombers’ death penalties. Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said the issue of clemency for the three Australians was “not on the table yet” as their legal appeals were not finished.

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6/8/08

Indonesia will execute a total of 39 Indonesian and foreign drug traffickers held on death row by the end of 2009, officials said on Wednesday, as the country faces a growing illegal drugs problem. Three Australians sentenced to death for drug trafficking are not among the 39 because they have not yet exhausted all avenues of appeal. “The president has rejected clemency for 39 people, so the next stage for them is execution,” said Indradi Thanos, head of the national police drugs unit.

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6/8/08

Australia and Indonesia have agreed to start a working holiday visa scheme. Australian Immigration Minister Chris Evans said the two countries had finalised an agreement to establish a working holiday visa scheme, similar to one already in place between Australia and numerous other countries. “This will facilitate the capacity of young people from each country to work and holiday in each other’s countries,” he said. “I’m a very firm believer that schemes like this broaden the understanding of each other’s cultures.”

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Mark Forbes; 2/8/08

Waht do you get for instigating a nation’s worst human-made disaster, flooding 600 hectares with toxic mud from an unsafe gas well, cutting key highways and displacing about 40,000 people? In Indonesia, you get a government award for complying with safety and environmental standards. A public relations campaign by gas company Lapindo, owned by the Peoples Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, has been boosted by the Environment Ministry’s “Oscar”. Since a drilling well erupted in an unstoppable torrent of mud in East Java two years ago, Lapindo has gone to extraordinary lengths to escape blame.

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Stephanie March; 31/7/08

East Timor’s inaugural Journalist of the Year awards last week provided much-needed encouragement for professionals facing an uncertain future, as authorities draft a press law that could make defamation a criminal offence. At a ceremony in Dili on Saturday, Nelson Filomeno De Jesus from Radio Timor-Leste took the top award, named after five international journalists killed by Indonesian troops in Balibo, East Timor, in 1975. His story about a failure of the justice system to deal with child sexual abuse won both the top prize and the Roger East award for Best Electronic Journalism, presented by Hollywood actor Anthony LaPaglia.

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28/7/08

The Indonesian government has assured PNG that there would be no repeat border incursions into PNG by its soldiers.The assurance was conveyed to Foreign Affairs, Trade and Immigration Minister Samuel Abal by his Indonesian counterpart, Hassan Wirajudi, in Singapore last week. There had been a number of alleged border incursions by the Indonesians in the last three months. PNG had protested through a diplomatic note conveyed through the Indonesian embassy in Port Moresby. The apologies from the Indonesians blamed the incursions on “new recruits deployed to the border region”.

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Ben Doherty; 28/7/08

There is food now, for the markets are open, and the men have found work on local farms. But Dominges Enriques has lived too many — nine — of her 34 years at Noelbaki to believe it will last. Her family has no land of its own to work, and without it she must buy her food. Soon it will be expensive once more. She knows her children will go hungry again. Ms Enriques is proudly East Timorese, but she has not been back to her homeland since the violent birth that gave her country its independence in 1999. As she was married to an Indonesian, East Timor was not safe for her at emancipation, and she fears it is still not: “Timor Leste now, it has many problems, and it makes me afraid to go back.” So she finds herself still in Noelbaki, an ad hoc refugee camp built abutting a bus terminal on the outskirts of the port town of Kupang in West Timor. She has lived here for almost a decade.

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Karen Michelmore; 21/7/08

Three death-row Bali bombers will be executed “as soon as possible,” Indonesia’s attorney general said today after the Islamic militants declined to seek clemency from the President. Hendarman Supandji said he hoped that so-called “smiling assassin” Amrozi, his brother Mukhlas and Imam Samudra would be executed before the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan in September. The three bombers face death by firing squad for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians and three New Zealanders. “We want it as soon as possible,” Mr Supandji he said.

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