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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
Week of June 19, 1998
EL NINO-LA NINA A study by three world meteorological organizations forecast a weakening of El Niño, and the entry of La Niña, a cooling of eastern Pacific water temperatures, causing more rain to fall in the region. Expect the effect to be felt by December.JAKARTA The National Commission on Human Rights says at least twice as many people died in rioting in Jakarta last month than previously reported. It revised the death toll to 1,188, up from about 500.
EAST TIMOR President Habibie is considering a special status for East Timor, similar to that of other provinces, like Aceh and Jogjakarta. He granted amnesty to 10 East Timor political prisoners, but rebel leader Xanana Gusmao remains jailed.
Week of June 12, 1998
INDONESIA'S INFLUENCE
Who is afraid of the repercussions of Suharto's overthrow? Beijing has certainly stepped up security around the ninth anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. And Malaysian opposition leader Lim Kit Siang minced no words at a party function when he declared, after citing events in Indonesia, that: "Mahathir is part of the problem of the multiple Malaysian crises, causing the national crisis to become so intractable and insoluble, and he is no more part of the solution."Has Myanmar's junta taken the lesson to heart too? The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) was long an ally of Suharto. But soon after his ouster, the Myanmar Monitor - a U.S.-based newsletter that is seen by some as a public relations tool of the generals - quoted opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It mentioned her call for "a peaceful settlement" to the standoff between opposition groups and the government. The junta had allowed her National League for Democracy to go ahead with a meeting to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the 1990 elections that the military government overrode to retain power. The Monitor article - "Cooperative Efforts Required" - seemed to be a call for dialogue. Similar gestures have been made to the NLD in the past, but always broke down when the SPDC insisted Suu Kyi be excluded. And the National Council of the Union of Burma, operating out of neighboring Thailand, made it even clearer: "As the aggressive Indonesian model of Suharto has been thoroughly crushed and immersed in shame by the heroic students and people of Indonesia, it is necessary for the top leaders of the SPDC to cull a lesson from the development without delay."
BANGKOK Ethnic-Chinese Indonesians with at least 10 million baht ($250,000) in cash have been offered permanent residency in Thailand. Successful applicants would be required to make investments or deposit the money in Thai accounts.
Week of May 22, 1998
Dengue fever continues to plague Indonesia, where more than 32,000 people have been infected this year. Southeast Asian countries are bracing for the worst epidemic in years, expected to peak in May or June. The mosquito-borne disease has killed more than 800 people across the region this year.A two-day workshop opened in Jakarta on May 11, aiming to strengthen ASEAN's ability to prevent and alleviate the haze caused by forest fires. It is part of a $1 million Asian Development Bank project to implement a regional haze action plan agreed to by ASEAN ministers in December. Part of the group's work will be to write a report on the causes of fires in Indonesia, and assess firefighting capabilities.
Week of May 15, 1998
Heavy rains put out most of the fires in East Kalimantan. Only 50 of about 800 hotspots are still smoldering. If the hot, dry weather returns, there is a danger that the fires can start again. "It is still not safe," warns Hartmut Abberger, a German firefighter in the region. He estimates at least 450,000 hectares of forest, bush and grasslands burned in the past four months.Week of May 8, 1998
Business news tabloid Kontan reported that the clove monopoly, run by President Suharto's son Hutomo Mandala Putra (Tommy), is still in business despite a January decree worked out with the IMF. Kretek (clove cigarette) makers reportedly must buy cloves from a new company, Kembang Cengkeh Nasional, controlled by Tommy. Otherwise, they can't purchase tax stickers for the cigarettes.Week of May 1, 1998
The government said it met the first deadlines of the IMF for the implementation of economic reforms. It named seven companies it will privatize in 1999, announced trade reforms including the withdrawal of a ban on palm oil exports, and raised minimum bank capital requirements.Week of April 24, 1998
THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES criticized France, Switzerland and Brunei for handing over to police 27 Indonesians seeking asylum in their embassies in Kuala Lumpur. "They could have waited a little longer since these people need to be heard" so as to determine whether they are valid political refugees, the UNHCR said in Geneva.Week of April 17, 1998
Science, Technology and Environment Minister Law Hieng Ding says the haze will return to Peninsular Malaysia in May unless forest fires in Indonesia are put out by then. He said winds will blow smoke from the fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan - which Indonesia says it cannot stop - across the Malacca Strait.Week of April 10, 1998
In Indonesia, Life Imitates Art
This from a high-ranking source within the Malaysian government: In Indonesia, a visiting senior ASEAN minister met with finance minister Mar'ie Muhammad just days before President Suharto's new cabinet was announced. Mar'ie, who knew he would no longer be in the government and that he had fallen far out of favor with Suharto, was very depressed. His visitor told him not to be hard on himself, relax, go to a movie. The visitor suggested Titanic, which he and his family had recently seen. At that point the distressed Mar'ie blew up. "Why would I want to see a movie like that? We are the Titanic!" he yelled. What's more, he said, his compatriot Sudrajad Djiwandono, the sacked former head of the central bank, was among those pushed from the sinking ship. Lost in the metaphor, Mar'ie calmed down, musing that the now abandoned plan for a currency board to control foreign exchange rates was not the iceberg that was going to sink the country, but only the tip of the problem. The visiting ASEANminister did not say how much longer the bewildered former finance minister continued in that vein - or whether Mar'ie ever went to see the film.Week of April 3, 1998
Rais Ducks a F
eint and Stays on His FeetAmien Rais
heads Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Muslim organization, with 28 mill
ion members. It is a well-reported fact that an investigation of a meeting which
he and 17 other people attended is underway - although Rais has not yet been qu
estioned. On Feb. 5, the group attended a discussion called by Rais's thinktank,
the Center for Strategy and Policy Studies (CSPS) at the Radisson Hotel in Jogjakarta. Rais insists that all that was discussed was Indonesia's political and economic situation. But a CSPSresearcher at the meeting,Sofian Effendi, sent a memo to then minister of research and technology, B. J. Habibie, accusing the group of planning a demonstration of one million people during the March 1 opening of the People's Consultative Assembly. That was the convention which returned President Suharto to his seventh term in office and made Habibie vice president.Effendi has since joined Habibie's vice presidential staff. And Rais is clearly under pressure following the accusations. But Rais swears he and his colleagues are innocent and says he is ready to be questioned by investigators. With his mass power base, he has little to fear.
Rais is known to be disappointed by not getting more liberal Muslim intellectuals into the new cabinet. For Habibie, putting pressure on Rais might help reassure President Suharto of his own loyalty. Given the lack of a more coherent opposition, Rais has emerged as the point man for much of the popular sentiment arrayed against the government. For now, neither side seems prepared to upset that precarious balance.
MALAYSIA-INDONESIA Kuala Lumpur stepped up efforts to keep out a new wave of boat people seeking relief from crisis-hit Indonesia. A sea and air operation along the Strait of Malacca mobilized more than 500 personnel and four naval ships to scare off thousands of would-be illegal immigrants. Authorities want to avoid the costs of detaining the people, most of them seeking jobs.
NEGOTIATIONS TO RELEASE THE SECOND IMF TRANCHE of about $3 billion were proceeding well at mid-week. That launched a 7% rally for the rupiah. Government reports that it would insist on compulsory reporting of private sector debt and interest rate hikes, coupled with hope that the country would adhere to IMF-imposed guidelines, buoyed many investors.
Week of March 13, 1998
Jakarta Moms Tak e On the State
For the women - mothers - who demonstrated in Jakarta protesting outrageously high milk prices last week, one of the most illuminating aspects of their arrest was the fact that the state - or at least the police who hauled them down to the station house - hadn't the faintest clue of how to deal with legitimate popular complaint. A group of about 12 women had congregated outside the Hotel Indonesia in mid-morning, holding signs, singing and praying. They were outnumbered by the foreign press corps by about six to one. Their intention was to draw the world's attention to the plight of Indonesia's mothers and children. It worked.This was not your run-of-the-mill, taking-it-to-the-streets mob. Among the organizers were Karlina Leksono, 40, an astronomer, who works in a research agency headed by B.J. Habibie, the sole candidate for the vice presidency. Gadis Arifia Effendi, 33, has an M.A. and teaches in the University of Indonesia's philosophy department. Wilasih Noviana, 30, is studying law.
The women were allowed to finish their little demo - they were surrounded by foreign cameras, remember - and herded into a police pickup truck. By mid-afternoon, they found themselves answering the same five or six questions - posed in an increasingly rude manner - in the Vice Control Unit, usually reserved for prostitutes and pushers. The last of the women, Leksono, was released at two the next morning.
What their interrogators couldn't seem to grasp, the women say, was that they are not aligned with opposition parties, nor do they back Megawati Sukarnoputri, a long- time oppositionist. The police were at a loss on how to deal with a few women acting on an impulse of concern. It seems it is the threat of organized opposition that most worries authorities, and it is a fear that keeps them from making the distinction between discontent and disloyalty.
Week of March 6, 1998
Haze from forest fires in Kalimantan has reached neighboring countries again. An air pollution expert in Jakarta warned it will get worse:"In a week the rainfall and wind direction will change so there will be a change around to Malaysia and Singapore."Another adviser says the fires are too big and widespread to be effectively contained.Week of February 27, 1998
Seven ethnic Chinese businessmen are the country's biggest taxpayers, while the next two largest contributors to the state's coffers are Bambang Trihatmodjo and Hutomo Mandala Putra, children of President Suharto, the Finance Ministry says. Its report of the 200 highest tax-payers did not include the amount of taxes paid by each individual.Week of February 13, 1998
A Farewell to Arms Deals
Russian arms sales in parts of Asia are suffering from the economic downturn. Ruslan Pukhov, director of Moscow's Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies is convinced of it: "I think that the contracts, especially with Indonesia, are lost for the time being." He thinks business will pick up in two to four years. Many in Moscow think the $500 million deal with Indonesia - including 12 Sukhoi Su-30K fighter-bombers - was shot down by U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen when he met with President Suharto recently. They say he made U.S. involvement in bailing out Jakarta from its economic crisis contingent on cancellation of the contract. An official at the Indonesian embassy in Moscow told Asiaweek a proposal to only postpone the deal might be in the works, but the offer has not gone to the Russians yet."We have had no rains for over two months and fire spots have resurfaced again in areas with heavy coal seams," the meteorological office in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, reports. Some flights from Samarinda's airport and Balikpapan were canceled because of low visibility.
Week of February 6, 1998
Hidden in the Vision
Java's mystics think they know why Indonesia is so troubled: because fate has decreed it. "It's our karma," Permadi, a well-known Javanese soothsayer, told an Asiaweek reporter seeking the future. He points to an ancient prophecy spun by a pre-Islamic 12th-century king, Jayabaya, who saw as far as the first three presidents of the post-colonial period. According to the myth, the country's first ruler would be a leader with a "voice like thunder," a description that fits the Independence hero, Sukarno. His successor, however, would be someone quite different: a "Prosperity Warrior," whose policies would enrich the country. That, says Permadi, is the quiet Suharto, under whose rule Indonesia became a successful developing nation. But between the second leader's rule and that of his successor, says the soothsayer, there will be a time of madness, marked by natural disasters and moral corruption. "There will be many children without parents," says the former lawyer, intoning in nasal Javanese the prophecy's cryptic couplets. "Men will become women, women will be men, and lose all their inhibitions." But what new leader might emerge from this topsy-turvy period? "He is called the Hidden Warrior," says Permadi, "someone who is unexpected." When the times call out for clarity, even prophets are silent.Week of January 30, 1998
INDONESIA-TAIWAN Officials in Jakarta met with Taiwan Premier Vincent Siew, despite strong protests from China. His trip is part of Taipei's diplomatic offensive tied to the regional financial crisis, which Taiwan has largely escaped so far. Beijing rumbled a warning to Asian countries (Siew has recently been to Singapore) to "strictly honor their commitments to the one-China policy."Two of the largest banks will merge. Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia, the country's 9th- argest bank, owned by major conglomerate Gajah Tunggal, will unite with Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII), the 8th-biggest, controlled by tycoon Eka Tjipta Widjaja. They will be joined by three smaller institutions. The new group will have assets of over 50 trillion rupiah - about $5.2 billion - and will retain BII's name.
Week of January 23, 1998
SILKAIR AFTERMATH The U.S. Federal Aviation Commission ordered immediate inspections of American Boeing 737s. The move comes after investigators into the Dec. 19 crash of a SilkAir 737 in Sumatra found that 26 fasteners were missing from the right-side rear horizontal stabilizer. SilkAir records show they were in place at regular maintenance checks.Week of January 16, 1998
The three-week search for the remains of SilkAir Flight 185, which crashed Dec. 19 in Sumatra's muddy Musi River en route from Jakarta to Singapore, ended Jan. 6. Salvage teams turned up enough evidence to identify only four victims out of 104 people onboard, but they did locate the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, which were sent to the U.S. for analysis.The central bank - Bank Negara - wants merger agreements between smaller finance companies and larger ones co pleted by March 31. The bank identified four companies to act as anchors for smaller companies, shoring up the troubled economy's credit industry: Arab-Malaysian Finance, Hong Leong Finance, Mayban Finance and Public Finance.
INDONESIA-SOUTH KOREA Deposed Kia Chairman Kim Sun Hong was appointed an adviser to Indonesia's Timor Group, which has a shaky joint venture with the bankrupt Korean car-maker to produce low-priced automobiles in Indonesia. Kim was involved in the Indonesian car project from early o n, but was forced to resign as chairman of the Kia Group in September, two months after the group went under.
Week of January 9, 1998
Suharto Returns With Vigor
Not long ago in Jakarta there was a suspicion that the respected Bank of Indonesia (BI) governor Soedradjad Djiwandono would soon be losing his job. That has not turned out to be the case, yet. But when President Suharto returned on Dec. 22 from an extended rest period enforced by his doctors, one of his first acts was to fire four of seven top-level BI directors and bring in an old ally - Radi us Prawiro - to try to bring order to the private financial sector. Three of the men Suharto dismissed are now under investigation for corruption. Soedradjad - the men's superior - was not informed of the changes. But familial politics may also have a hand. Soedradjad is believed to have been the man behind the denial of a loan to one of the president's children, and his name can hardly be popular within the family circle.News from Indonesia in 1997
News from Indonesia in 1996
News from Indonesia in 1995
