Saturday, March 22, 2014

[batavia-news] Military Ambition In Indonesia – Analysis

http://www.eurasiareview.com/21032014-military-ambition-in-indonesia-analysis/

Military Ambition In Indonesia – Analysis

March 21, 2014 Hipolitus Yolisandry Ringgi Leave a comment

Heading into the 2014 election, Indonesian society is being faced with certain political figures, ranging from businessmen and office holders, to military background figures. However, given many election surveys, two prominent figures have emerged as the most likely to be the next Indonesian president, namely Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto. Joko Widodo, affectionately known as Jokowi, is Jakarta's current governor, whereas Prabowo is the chief patron of the Greatest Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) as well as a former general of the late President Suharto. Recently, Jokowi has been announced as the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) candidate. Thus, the governor Jokowi and former military general, Prabowo will likely dominate the Indonesian political landscape prior to presidential election in September 2014.

After 15 years of democratic consolidation, the big inquiry is whether Indonesia still needs the military style leadership. In the last three general elections, the military candidates have always been involved to run for office. The current president is the former Suharto general who has been in office for two terms.

In this 2014 election, at least two former generals have announced their candidacies beside Prabowo, namely former Indonesian military commander Wiranto supported by his party, the Peoples Conscience Party (Hanura) and Sutiyoso, retired army lieutenant general cum Chairman of the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI). The ruling party, Democrat, also is presenting former army chief of staff Pramono Edhie Wibowo as one of its presidential candidates. All of these generals, except Pramono Edhie, served during Suharto's waning days. And these three generals are also widely believed to have been involved in human rights violations.
Ironically, on the one hand, Indonesian society is hoping to have clean and good leaders, such as Jokowi and Tri Rismaharini, the Surabaya Mayor.

On the other hand, as a recent survey shows, many Indonesian voters still prefer a presidential or vice presidential candidate with a military background over a civilian. Three characteristics have been advanced for this preference, namely decisiveness, discipline and firmness. This tendency exemplifies the romance of the Suharto-backed military regime among Indonesians.

The military in Indonesia has two prominent reasons why they have to meddle in daily political life. First, the Indonesian military (TNI) still criticizes the current democratic system. As attributed by Indonesia's army strategic command head, Lieutenant General Gatot Nurmayanto, Indonesian democracy is not always right for Indonesia. Accordingly, democracy based on popular vote does not always lead to the strengthening of the nation.

For some political analysts, this is the picture of a hard-line faction within the TNI to push for more military involvement in Indonesia's daily politics.

Second, the TNI has doubted the ability of civilian government to govern. Corruption and immorality have become chronic diseases in the civilian government. As a result, certain political regulations can risk national stabilization, such as the current dispute over the legitimacy of Law No. 42/2008 on presidential and vice presidential elections. As former army intelligence head, Soleman B. Ponto argues, the potential of national chaos is high, given that the law was dismissed by the constitutional court in January 2014. If national chaos develops, the military will launch what Ponto calls a "constitutional coup".

In addition, during my personal interview in 2012 with former Vice Chief Staff of Army, retired Major General Kiki Syanahkri, he expressed the same concern. He thought that the quality degradation of civilian government and intended to take political steps necessary to return to the original version of the 1945 constitution. To support his idea, Kiki and his colleges in the Retired Army Association (PPAD), proposed to form a "national council". This would allow the military to legitimately engage directly in politics. These statements raise the question about the military's relentless tendency to take any opportunity to influence or even to take over the civilian government.

Democracy allows for every individual, regardless of their background, to run for office. However, after the downfall of authoritarian regime and the beginning of democratic consolidation, the remnants of a former authoritarian regime, including the military, should be restricted from participating in politics. The former regime was highly backed up by the military in Indonesia during the new order period for over 30 years. This history can give the military the desire to re-engage in the new political system. If it does, there is high possibility for the military to bring back an authoritarian spirit, such as in Egypt and Thailand.

According to the Indonesian constitution, military figures can run for office after resigning from active duty. However, the close relations between former officers and active officers are difficult to overlook. Former officers support the core interests of their institution. This again brings up the question of the future of the TNI reformation that has stalled during the second term of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). Three crucial areas of the TNI's internal reform could be "blocked" by former senior officers if they get elected.

First and foremost is the uplifting of human rights values among officers. The TNI has been globally known for its human rights record toward its own people. The military internal reformation failed to deal with this issue, particularly in Papua province. The military candidates are likely to defend their former institution. For instance, the prison raid by army special forces (Kopassus) that killed four detainees in Cebongan, drew support and even praise from Prabowo and other former generals, including SBY. In addition, Pramono Edhie Wibowo recently called to forget past violations of human rights conducted by the TNI.

The second area of army reform which might be left undone is the reorganization or even liquidation of some army territorial commands across country. Many territorial commands at the regional level have been widely alleged to be used for political and economic purposes. As a leading general during the early days of TNI's reformation, Wiranto supported and defended the existence of the commands. In present day, there are no military candidates have questioned these commands in light of charges of misuse for political purpose and human rights violations.

The third area of military reform needed is the management of its businesses, particularly the illegal ones, such as illegal logging, gambling, and the security business. It seems hard to tackle this issue if some former generals get elected in September, given the fact that the military still highly depends on these off-budget resources.

Given the uncertainty at the national level, Indonesian democracy will arguably allow the military figures to continue their role as decisive political actors as happened during the new order. In contrast, after the era of strong military regimes, certain Latin America countries have produced many strong populist leaders, such as Lula Da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil; Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentine and Evo Morales in Bolivia. These figures can restrict constitutionally military ambition in their countries. They can channel effectively people's aspirations to support government policies, instead of paving the way to the military to get its second opportunity to govern.

Indonesian politics has never gotten out from under military influence, and certain populist leaders, such as Jokowi and Risma, also appear to rely on military support. As a result, the future of the Indonesian democratic system remains uncertain.

Hipolitus Yolisandry Ringgi is a visiting scholar in the Equality Development and Globalization Studies at the BCICS, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, the US

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[batavia-news] As U.S. war ends, Russia returns to Afghanistan with series of investment projects

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/as-us-war-ends-russia-returns-to-afghanistan-with-series-of-investment-projects/2014/03/21/11fab228-a5fc-11e3-b865-38b254d92063_story.html?wpisrc=nl_hdln

As U.S. war ends, Russia returns to Afghanistan with series of investment projects

A worker at the Kabul Housebuilding Factory tests a machine from the Soviet era. The factory continues to produce walls for prefabricated housing. (Lorenzo Tugnoli/For The Washington Post)

Written by Kevin Sieff

Saturday, March 22, 1:15 AM

E-mail the writer

KABUL — To the white-bearded Afghan machinists, it felt like the Cold War era had suddenly returned.

After 25 years of working in a sprawling Soviet-built factory — a vestige of a war and occupation long extinguished — they suddenly spotted a new shipment of gleaming Russian equipment arriving last fall on an 18-wheeler.

The factory was abuzz. The Russians were back.

As the U.S.-led war winds down and Russia reasserts itself in Ukraine and the Middle East, Moscow is also ramping up its investment in Afghanistan. It is rebuilding the relics of the Soviet occupation and promoting its own political and cultural prowess.

"You see Russia's interest in Afghanistan rising. It's visible," said Stepan Anikeev, the spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Kabul. "We want to enlarge our role in the region. It's not only for Afghanistan, but for our own goals."

Russia's recent incursion into its neighbor, Ukraine, and its annexation of Crimea reflect its intent to maintain influence in some former Soviet republics. It also reaching out to old allies further afield. Last month, President Vladimir Putin received Egyptian army chief Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, whose relations with Washington have been strained since a coup last summer, and expressed support for the military man's expected presidential bid.

Moscow is also negotiating a major arms deal with Sissi and agreed in 2012 to sell Iraq $4.3 billion in weapons. In Syria, Putin is strongly backing the government of President Bashar al-Assad as he seeks to crush a rebellion that has received support from the West.

In Afghanistan, Russian officials point to their development activities as a counterexample to U.S. aid projects, which many Afghans criticize as wasteful and misguided.

People sit in a park outside an apartment building in the neighborhood of Microryan in Kabul, where most of the housing units built with Russian funds from the time of the invasion are located. Houses in this part of the city are considered comfortable by Afghan standards, with central heating and sewage and electrical systems. (Lorenzo Tugnoli/For The Washington Post)

"The mistake of the last 12 years is that people were eager to give money, but without the proper strategy," said Russian Ambassador Andrey Avetisyan, who was also based in Kabul as a young diplomat in the 1980s.

Many Afghans, including President Hamid Karzai, praise the Soviet model even though they fought a bloody 10-year war against the country's army, which invaded in 1979 to support an unpopular communist government.

"The Soviet money went to the right place. They were efficient in spending their money and doing it through the Afghan government," Karzai said in an interview with The Washington Post this month.

The new warmth between the Kremlin and Afghanistan was visible this week when the Afghan government released a message from Putin marking the Persian new year. It was the only such message made public, and was released at a time when the United States and European governments are imposing sanctions on Russia for its expansion into Ukraine.

"I am certain that friendly ties and cooperation between Russia and Afghanistan in the future will add to the goodness and welfare of our people," Putin said in the message to Karzai, which was translated into Dari, the local language.

The Russian government has compiled a list of 140 Soviet-era projects that it would like to rehabilitate, according to the embassy. The Kabul Housebuilding Factory, the country's largest manufacturing facility, was the first to receive assistance last fall: $25 million in new equipment.

Gen. Labib Raeed, who fought against the Russian army, stands near the window in his apartment in Microryan. Labib now works as religious adviser at the ANA military training center in Kabul. (Lorenzo Tugnoli/For The Washington Post)

A worker at the Kabul Housebuilding Factory prepares material to build walls for apartment complexes. Residents of the apartments include Afghan government officials and members of the country's middle class. (Lorenzo Tugnoli/For The Washington Post)

A few miles away in Kabul, the Russian government is spending $20 million to renovate the Soviet House of Science and Culture, constructed in 1982. The building, whose jutting angles exemplify Soviet industrial design, was torn apart by bullets and rockets and became crowded with Afghan drug addicts. It is to reopen this fall as the Russian Cultural Center, a beacon for those with interest in Russia.

"We want to expand our culture here," Anikeev said of the center.

Aid that's appreciated

Afghanistan is still peppered with reminders of both the Soviet Union's war and its infrastructure projects. Soviet land mines continue to kill and injure dozens of Afghan civilians every year. But its bread-making factory still produces thousands of loaves every day. Its housing complexes are among the country's most desirable (and the only ones with central heating).

"I hated the Soviets. I fought against them. They killed my father. But this is still the best place to live," Gen. Labib Raeed said in his apartment in the Microryan, a Soviet-built complex which translates to "housing block" in Russian.

Raeed is an officer in the U.S.-backed Afghan army, but he's quick to criticize the U.S. development effort — more than $100 billion spent on non-military aid, including roads and schools.

"The Americans were generous to donate so much money, but they gave it to the wrong people," he said.

The Microryan looks like it has been transplanted from a small Russian city. It is gray and unadorned, a stark contrast to the flashiness of Kabul's new homes and wedding halls. The four-bedroom apartments are cramped and austere, but they sell for more than $100,000.

Projects such as the Microryan were constructed during the height of the Cold War. The Soviet Union continued building even as it waged war in the country throughout the 1980s. And then, on Feb. 15, 1989, it was all over. The Soviets withdrew and their projects — the factories, schools, swimming pools atop Kabul hills — were left largely unattended.

Many of those projects managed to survive a civil war and the Taliban regime relatively intact. The house-building factory made the prefabricated walls from which Taliban officials, including top leader Mohammad Omar, built their homes and offices. Last year, it produced the walls for one of Afghanistan's biggest prisons.

A machine from the Soviet era sits unused in the Kabul Housebuilding Factory. (Lorenzo Tugnoli/For The Washington Post)

The machinists who were in their 20s when they were trained by Soviet engineers are now middle-aged, but they're still working on the same equipment, with instructions in fading Cyrillic characters. The new Russian technology is expected to be installed in the coming months.

Many Afghans question why Russia seems so interested in development here now, just as the West's assistance tapers off. The aid program seems to many a calculated move reminiscent of the Great Game, the contest between the Russian and British empires for influence in central Asia in the 19th century.

Russian officials say that supporting Afghanistan makes sense, given their regional interests. Afghanistan shares borders with three former Soviet states that still receive considerable funding — and direction — from Moscow. And Afghanistan continues to be a major source of narcotics that pour into Russia. Economic development, along with a Russian-funded counternarcotics program, could curb that illicit trade, officials hope.

Still, the timing of Russia's development effort has raised eyebrows. That country's most significant economic partnership with Afghanistan in recent years, a joint commission on "trade and economic cooperation," wasn't launched until 2012, the year the U.S. withdrawal began.

There are other signs of a Russian revival here.

The number of students studying Russian at Kabul University has doubled in the past two years. Russia, in turn, has doubled the number of scholarships it offers to Afghan students. The cultural center, when it reopens this fall, will hold a vast library of Russian literature and offer language courses.

Russia has refused to send soldiers to support the NATO mission and has provided limited military aid. Although there is talk of equipping Afghan forces with more Russian-made Kalashnikov assault rifles, that plan has not been finalized and civilian projects remain the focus of the development effort.

A mother walks her children to a park near an apartment building in Kabul's Microryan neighborhood. (Lorenzo Tugnoli/For The Washington Post)

"What the Soviets did here was really fundamental. They were thinking about the long term," said Ahmad, the head engineer of the house-building factory, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

For 30 years, Ahmad has walked past the same inscription every day on his way to the office.

"This factory," the inscription reads, "was built by the friendly government of the Soviet Union and was presented to the Afghan nation as a gift." The year "1962" is carved into the stone.

In the 1980s, as Afghanistan's war with the Soviet Union raged, the word "friendly" stood out as bitterly ironic. Now, with Russia's promise to return the factory to its days of productivity, the adjective is starting to resonate.

"We don't differentiate between the Americans and the Russians. Whoever wants to help us," said Ahmad. "We welcome the Russians back."

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Friday, March 21, 2014

[batavia-news] Democracy, a ‘pathway to hell’

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2014/03/20/democracy-a-pathway-to-hell/

Democracy, a 'pathway to hell'

Ian Wilson

– 20 March 2014Posted in: Indonesia Votes

Members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) holding an anti-Ahmadiyah rally in Jakarta. Author photo.

"Democracy is more haram than pig's meat!" declared Habib Rizieq, leader of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) at a meeting of the organisation in 2013. Aside from being a harbinger of apostasy, Rizieq also claims democracy and its system of one-person one-vote is an insult to the moral authority of Islamic scholars such as himself, as "the voice of a prostitute or a drunk is of equal value".

Despite this unambiguous rejection of democracy as a literal "pathway to hell", the FPI and other Islamist vigilantes have proven adept over the past decade at playing a particular kind of wedge politics shaped by Indonesia's decentralised electoral system. It has seen them exercise increasing influence over government policy disproportionate to their size, in particular in regards to their key obsessions: pornography, 'deviant' sects and 'Christianisation'. The irony that their existence is itself a product of Indonesia's greater freedom of organisation is something that apparently escapes them.

So if they don't want democracy, what do they want? Syaria law ala Aceh, or the global Caliphate touted by fellow Islamists such as Hizbut Tahrir? Neither. Rather the FPI advocate an essentially nationalist line: a return to the 1945 constitution. They claim Indonesia's founding political document makes no mention of democracy, instead outlining a system of consultative consensus decision making in keeping with Islamic tradition.

In this the FPI has found ideological bedfellows amongst New Order apologists, including former generals. While having no interest in Islam, they do share an interest in rolling back any moves towards more liberal democracy or progressive social change. The linking thread is a preference for authoritarianism.

These views are far from extreme. President Yudhoyono's Democrat party has called for 'democratic downgrading', including the ending of direct elections for regional heads. Presidential frontrunners such as former Special Forces commander and serial human rights violator, Prabowo Subianto has also expressed the view that Indonesian democracy is "excessive". Others such as the National Awakening Party, perhaps unsettled by a growing trade union movement, have stated that freedom of organisation needs to be reined in. Indonesia's democratic future is far less secure than many foreign commentators would suggest.

It's perhaps then unsurprising that many political parties and elites have extended a hand to the FPI. Indonesia's Minister of Home Affairs went so far as to call them a 'national asset' who should be 'embraced'. Despite being deeply unpopular amongst the general public, political parties and elites have recognised their utility value in a situation where non-participation in elections has steadily increased. Some suggest that in 2014 it could be as high as 50%, reflective of a broader disillusionment with the substance of institutional democracy and daily revelations of endemic corruption.

Appealing to conservative Islamists and their sympathisers entails fairly minimal political concessions, such as adopting a hard-line stance against pornography, with the potential to garner votes from groups ideologically disinclined to participate. This is certainly an easier electoral path than, for example, developing coherent policies to tackle Indonesia's economic anomaly of sustained economic growth coupled with rising poverty.

……….

Dr Ian Wilson is a Lecturer at the School of Management and Governance and a Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University. A full paper on FPI and the elections can be found here.

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[batavia-news] Afghan Hazaras' new life in Indonesia

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/afghan-hazaras-new-life-indonesia-201436121639956520.html

Features

Afghan Hazaras' new life in Indonesia

Asylum-seeker community in West Java is large enough to easily man an eight-team Afghan football league.

Jack Hewson Last updated: 21 Mar 2014 10:43

Hazara Afghans have established an asylum-seeker community in Puncak [Jack Hewson/Al Jazeera]

Puncak, Indonesia - Noorullah said he can't talk about what happened to his younger brothers and sisters on the night the Taliban came to kill him.

What he did say is that his mother was beaten and his father hasn't been seen again. The last time Noorullah spoke to his father, he told him to escape through a first-floor window as armed men threatened to break down the front door of their home in Parwan province, Afghanistan.

"I ran for my life through the forest," Noorullah said. "We live in a remote place, I was scared of wolves that live there. It was winter and cold, but I ran as far as I could."

Noorullah's work as an interpreter for the US military had made him a target for the Taliban. He is also a Hazara - an Afghan ethnic minority who are Shia Muslim; the Hazara have long been persecuted by members of the Pashtun majority, who are Sunni.

"In the morning I found myself by the road," said Noorullah, who like many Afghans uses one name. "I tried to stop cars which were driven by members of my ethnicity, or at least not Pashtun. When I saw another Hazara, I waved in front of his truck and told him you have to stop."

Noorullah fled Afghanistan after the Taliban targeted him for working as an interpreter for the US military [Clea Broadhurst/Al Jazeera]

After making it to Kabul, Noorullah stayed at a friend's house and assessed his options. Conspicuous as a Hazara and fearful he could be identified by the Taliban's network of spies, his thoughts immediately turned to how he might leave the country.

He said he didn't want to depart by road to Pakistan in case he was discovered. Hundreds of thousands of Hazara have fled to Pakistan over the past decade, many of whom still face persecution there.

Instead he paid human traffickers to get him out of the country as quickly as possible.

"I felt that I could get killed at any time. Everything changes when it's like that, your mind is not on the correct path," he said.

"[I didn't] know about the consequences [of where to go] or the visa … or what to do. People who are being persecuted don't want to take the slower option. They want to go immediately."

On the run

When he left Afghanistan on January 28 last year, Noorullah said he wasn't primarily concerned with where he would resettle. His first aim was to put a large distance between him and the Taliban.

He said he knew it was unlikely he would remain at his first destination in New Delhi, India. But as he took off from Kabul airport, Noorullah said he never would have guessed that his search for asylum would bring him to Puncak - a Javan mountain town two hours from Indonesia's capital Jakarta, and a temporary home to an unlikely community of refugees.

After spending two months in Delhi, Noorullah said he saw no chance of forging a new life in India and went back to the traffickers. He then flew on to Malaysia, where he was held in a locked room in Kuala Lumpur for five days, before he crossed into Indonesia, illegally, by boat.

Noorullah paid $9,000 for his transit between Afghanistan and Indonesia.

After flying on from Medan on the island of Sumatra to Jakarta, Noorullah said he gradually met more Afghans in the same situation.

They told us there was a place that was beautiful, with minimum cost and very quiet .... This is the best place for us in Indonesia.

- Noorullah, Afghan refugee

"They told us there was a place that was beautiful, with minimum cost and very quiet. [They said there was] no need to live in Jakarta where there's too much traffic and it's crowded and expensive. So now we can live in [Puncak], a place like our previous hometown in Afghanistan … This is the best place for us in Indonesia," he said.

Noorullah estimated about 4,000 Afghans live in the town at the foot of Mount Gede - an active volcano that last erupted in 1957. The asylum-seeker community is large enough to easily man an eight-team Afghan football league, of which Noorullah is a part.

All seven of his friends who gathered around him as he recounted his story took the same route; all paid between $8,000-$12,500 to get here, all are Hazara. Noorullah said at least 95 percent of the Afghan population in Puncak are Hazara.

Heading to Puncak

On the surface, Indonesia seems like a strange choice of destination; it is not a signatory to the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention and has no process by which to give legal status to asylum seekers or refugees.

The government effectively outsources the processing of asylum seekers to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Jakarta.

UNHCR is tasked with assisting asylum seekers and refugees, either to return safely to their homeland, or to find other solutions, including resettlement to a third country.

But there are UNHCR offices across Asia. So why are Afghan asylum seekers coming here?

"[Hazara Afghans come to Indonesia] because the UNHCR here is better. You get to go to Australia a lot faster here. You get processed a lot faster. But in Thailand or other countries the UNHCR isn't that powerful or that good," Abdullah, a 22-year-old Hazara Afghan, said.

"A friend of mine was resettled about two months ago. He was here for about a year and a half, now he's in Melbourne or Brisbane. We stand a better chance of resettlement."

The vulnerability of the Hazara Afghanistan - for whom there is almost no hope of returning to their homeland - has made them a priority for UNHCR.

Australia also accepts a larger percentage of refugees from UNHCR in Indonesia to validate its tough stance on asylum seekers arriving by boat.

Hazara Afghans share a meal [Jack Hewson/Al Jazeera]

While the Prime Minister Tony Abbott's "Operation Sovereign Borders" continues to make headlines as asylum seekers wash up on Indonesia's south coast after being turned around by the Australian navy, there must be some sort of incentive for them to wait to be processed through legitimate channels.

"[It comes from] the recommendation of the Australian expert panel on asylum seekers in order to tackle and deter the boats from Indonesia. They are trying to push Indonesia into detaining asylum seekers who have not been granted refugee status and only accepting refugees who have," said Febionesta, a representative for the Indonesian Civil Society Network for Refugee Protection, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"To fulfil its side of [the bargain] Australia must receive more [documented] refugees from Indonesia, so that the refugees don't have to wait longer."

Settling down

In effect the Hazara asylum-seeker community in Puncak is the consequence of a small, esoteric window of hope in the UNHCR resettlement system.

And refugee rights campaigners are keen to stress that the window is small. They point out that the numbers being granted resettlement remain discouragingly low.

Last year UNHCR in Jakarta resettled about 800 refugees to Australia out of a combined total of 10,466 registered refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia.

The numbers accommodated between Indonesia and Australia are a tiny fraction of the 1.6 million Afghan refugees currently hosted in Pakistan.

In 2012, 88,600 registered refugees were resettled to a third country out of a global refugee population of 10.5 million - less than one percent.

Activists also point out that because of the criteria laid out by countries accepting refugees, certain ethnicities are discriminated against by the system.

Currently Hazara Afghans experience greater chances of resettlement. In Indonesia they may face a wait of between one and two years before being relocated, possibly to Australia or New Zealand.

They are trying to push Indonesia into detaining asylum seekers who have not been granted refugee status and only accepting refugees who have.

- Febionesta, Indonesian Civil Society Network for Refugee Protection

But for Rohingya Muslims persecuted in Myanmar, the chances of resettlement are almost zero.

With no hope of resettlement, asylum seekers may become stranded in Indonesia, with no right to work, education or healthcare.

Keeping busy

As years go by the wait for resettlement can become too much to bear, leading some to return to the people traffickers, and to hedge their bets on a rickety boat-ride to Australia.

Even for Noorullah - who has now been relocated to Medan by the International Organisation for Migration and hopes to reach a third country later this year - it is a daily challenge to remain optimistic about his situation; estranged from his family, surviving on offerings from refugee aid agencies.

"I can't be mentally disorganised. It makes you more and more unhealthy. So because of this we [hold our own] English classes, we have sport, football, we have to do some activities," he said.

"For a few minutes in the day you have to think about your life, your future, about what you're going to do. But for the rest of the day you must try to enjoy."

Noorullah said he does not blame the US military for his predicament, adding he was employed through a private contractor to report on development projects carried out under USAID funding. His employer told him they too were in danger and there was nothing they could do. He did not ask the US army for help.

"This happened because of the work I was doing," he said. "I wish I hadn't done it, but this is the challenge. To live you have to find another way."

UNHCR failed to respond to repeated requests for comment by the time of publication. Indonesia's Department for Immigration also failed to respond.

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[batavia-news] Bakrie Paints Maldives Jaunt With 2 Actresses as Research Trip

res: Untuk melihat video footage, click situs :

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/bakrie-paints-maldives-jaunt-2-actresses-research-trip/

Bakrie Paints Maldives Jaunt With 2 Actresses as Research Trip

By Jakarta Globe on 08:25 pm Mar 21, 2014

Category Featured, News, Politics

Tags: Aburizal Bakrie

Golkar presidential candidate Aburizal Bakrie hugs an oversize bear while on a trip to the Maldives.

Jakarta. A video clearly intended to embarrass Aburizal Bakrie emerged on the internet on Thursday showing the Golkar Party presidential candidate jetting off to the Maldives with a lawmaker and two actresses.

Sisters Marcella and Olivia Zalianty — familiar faces on the Indonesian movie circuit — joined Golkar lawmaker Aziz Syamsuddin on the trip.

Bakrie responded to the suspiciously timed video by characterizing the trip not as a skip over the Indian Ocean to agreeable over-water accommodation in the company of a couple of winsome actresses, but as some sort of fact-finder set up with the betterment of the rakyat in mind.

"It's to show that if [the Maldives] can be that great, why not our country?" Bakrie told reporters on Friday, as quoted by Indonesian news portal Okezone.

Indonesians may hope that the Maldives is not an accurate comparator. Ruled by a strongman for much of the last century, the Muslim-majority island nation entered a period of democratization before disintegrating into political disarray and violence.

Aziz, meanwhile, refused to say when the video was shot.

"It's a black campaign," the deputy chairman of the House of Representatives Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, told the Jakarta Globe. "A.R.B. is considered a parent to many — including me.

"You're just exaggerating to make it sensational."

While Aziz would not say when the video was filmed, it is most-likely about four years old — the May 5, 2010 issue of Indonesian news weekly, Gatra, is clearly visible on a center table on the plane in part of the video.

The video ends with a long shot of what appears to be one of the more expensive rooms at the W Retreat & Spa — a kitschy upmarket resort on Fesdu Island where the two-bedroom "Ocean Haven" currently fetches up to $8,400 a night. The room, one of two featuring the type of curved infinity pool seen in the video, is described as "the ultimate getaway, the Ocean Haven takes relaxation — or entertaining — to the extreme," on the W's website.

Golkar Party Secretary Idrus Marham said that Bakrie had been on the trip, but that several more people had been in attendance and it was not just the four of them.

"That's the trick of the video… it did not capture the whole group," Idrus said at Golkar's office, as quoted by news portal jpnn.com on Friday.

Yet only four people appear on the holiday video, which seems to present a plane-to-resort account of the Indonesian tycoon's island vacation.

He added that Bakrie, one of Indonesia's richest men, had often asked various people to join him on holiday and past destinations had included a spell to Melbourne for the Australian Open and a group holiday to Komodo.

News of the island-getaway broke this week when a hastily made blog titled "Aburizal Bakrie sik asik Marcella Olivia Zalianti di Maldives" appeared online. The blog, which only has a single post, featured a small collection of vacation snapshots.

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[batavia-news] Megawati Benar-benar Memperhatikan Kehendak Rakyat

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http://www.suaramerdeka.com/v1/index.php/read/news/2014/03/20/195256/Megawati-Benar-benar-Memperhatikan-Kehendak-Rakyat

20 Maret 2014 | 03:00 wib

Megawati Benar-benar Memperhatikan Kehendak Rakyat

JAKARTA, suaramerdeka.com – Gubernur DKI Jakarta Jokowi Widodo alias Jokowi pekan lalu telah diberi mandat oleh Ketua umum Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDIP) Megawati Soekarnoputri untuk menjadi calon presiden (capres). Walaupun tersiar kabar bahwa di internal PDIP terpecah lantaran pencparesan Jokowi, namun keputusan Megawati menurut anggota DPR RI dari Fraksi PDIP Imam Suroso, adalah keputusan paling tepat.

"Dalam kaitan pencapresan Jokowi saya melihat bahwa keputusan yang diambil Ibu Megawati sesungguhnya keputusan dari produk pemikiran dan perasaan dari seorang negarawan yang memperhatikan kehendak rakyat. Jadi harus diikuti dan didukung seluruh kader," tutur Imam Suroso, kepada wartawan Rabu (19/3) sore.

Pria yang dikenal memiliki kelebihan dari sisi supranatural itu menjelaskan, dalam mencalonkan Jokowi, Ibu Megawati tidak mengedepankan keinginannya pribadi. Namun, Ibu Mega lebih mementingkan keinginan rakyat.

"Jadi, saran saya kepada mas Guruh, dan kader lain yang tidak sependapat terkait pencapresan Jokowi, maka sebaiknya meniru sikap dari Ibu Mega agar bisa menjadi negarawan yang memperhatikan kehendak rakyat," tambah dia.

Menurut Suroso, Jokowi sudah diputuskan menjadi capres agar bisa membangun Indonesia, termasuk Solo dan Jakarta yang pernah ditatanya sebelum menjadi capres. Jadi seluruh kader harus solid dan berpikiran maju untuk mengegolkan Jokowi sebagai Presiden.

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[batavia-news] Megawati Benar-benar Memperhatikan Kehendak Rakyat

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