Jakarta (permanent emergency and extra-legal executions)

Photo: AFP

Here are some questions I would like to pose.

Why was it that the Noordin Top ‘terrorists’ group  eliminated with extreme prejudice?

Looking at this case one wonders why the Noordin Top people were not simply captured and brought to trial.

Once Top and others of his group were located would it not have been rather easy to isolate them and capture them?

Is the answer  because it would have required trials where evidence must be produced and a right to a legal defense allowed?

It really does appear that Top and his group were simply rubbed out. Extinguished. Executed. And done so in a very spectacular and public performance.

Were they killed because they knew too much? In a trial would they have implicated others? Would it not have been useful to obtain information from them about ‘terrorist’ networks? Or did they know things which would have been embarrassing to the government?

Is there no law in Indonesia except the law of the state of emergency?

I think these are important questions to ask but unfortunately they will never be answered.

Or perhaps the answers are explicitly clear.

Mark Neocleous. The Problem with Normality: Taking Exception to “Permanent Emergency”. Alternatives.  31 (200), 191-213. link is here…> Neocleous 2006 Emergency

Jakarta (Sri Mulyani Indrawati for VP)

 

Sri Mulyani Indrawati

In Economic Dynamism of Asia in the New Millenium: From the Asian Crisis to a New Stage of Growth(Advanced Research in Asian Economic Studies),Yoshinori Shimizu (Editor), 2007, appears an essay written by Ms. Indrawati, “Indonesian Economic Recovery Process and the Role of Government”. In this essay of the economic recovery of Indonesia at the 1997-98 economic crisis she concludes:

“Indonesia’s painful political transition is likely to remain a dominant factor affecting the sustainability of economic recovery. The effectiveness of the government in implementing economic programs and reform is highly dependent on support of the parliament and the capacity and the credibility of the new government. Major handicap lies in the weak institutional foundation in the area of politics, law (including basic constitution), and bureaucracy. Alleviation of these institutional problems requires persistent and consistent effort.

Realistically, even under the best cabinet formation in the government, a longer time will be needed for the new government to be able to fix the economic destruction and to create significant improvement. This is because, in the past four years, many opportunities were forgone. Even worse, problems emerged that further aggravated the burden and risk to the whole country. While building strong, effective, but accountable institutions will take some time, the explosion of problems can happen any time. Even with full support of parliament members in execution of difficult policies, the risk of failure is not trivial. These are seriously daunting tasks. Despite their size, Indonesia has no other option but to triumph over them.”

Here in a concise few paragraphs is, I believe, Ms. Indrawati’s poltical and economic philosphy.  She has maintained, through out, the best interests of  Indonesia. She clearly understands that no matter the “daunting tasks” that Indonesia faces that there is ”no other option but to triumph over them.”

In her record of government service and in her tenure as Finance Minister she has held true to this as a guiding principle.

This is my third post regarding Ms. Indrawati. The other two can be found below:  Jakarta (Sri Mulyani Indrawati)  and Jakarta (the next Vice President of Indonesia) where I have outlined why I think she should be selected to run with SBY as his Vice President in the upcoming elections.

Here I would simply like to make a few observations:

If she is simply going to be some kind of figurehead stand-in for SBY then the job is not for her. Her talents would otherwise be wasted. There is also the question of whether or not she really would want to be VP. Maybe she doesn’t. I have not read that anyone has directly asked her that question. On the other hand if she gets assurances from SBY that she will be able to extend reforms through the government then maybe she would consider taking the position, if offered.

Apparently there are other possible contenders for VP as well. The Jakarta Globe reports Hidayat Nur Wahid, Hatta Rajasa, and even Akbar Tanjung.

Recent polling suggests that no matter what his choice SBY will win the election. For some reason I don’t think SBY is interested in cutting political deals. I do think he is interested in doing what is best for Indonesia.

There is another interesting aspect to this as well.  It really doesn’t have much to do with directly with Mulyani (only maybe in part).

Suharto’s shadow still looms over Indonesian politics and society in general. 

It’s clear that Megawati, Kalla, Probowo, and Wiranto have tossed away any semblance of ideaology. Now it’s all about positioning. Kalla talks to Probowo, Probowo talks to Megawati, Probowo and Wiranto talk, and on and on it goes. Indonesia will never be able to move forward mired in all this talking among these old political hacks. Probowo likely would not be able to get a  US Visa. Wiranto is still regarded as a war criminal by the UN. Megawati is just plain ridiculous and Kalla is an opportunist and it appears he may have split GOLKAR or damaged it poltically.

Both Wiranto and Probowo are directly tied to Suharto. They worked for him.  Megawati’s party was victimized by Suharto and by the very people she is now trying to (or was trying to) form a political coalition with. Kalla simply took over GOLKAR as a ready made political machine when it should have been disbanded.

It’s as if there were not any Indonesian history after 1998, or at least any politician with a memory.

Suharto’s shadow still looms large over the political landscape.

When you look at all the players in the current election scheme you can only conclude that a new generation of reformasi minded politicians is necessary to move Indonesia foward. Indonesia has no other option but to triumph over the past.

I say Ms. Indrawati is representative of  new poltical possibilties for Indonesia. She has it right.

Jakarta (Sri Mulyani Indrawati)

Sri Mulyani Indrawati

 

I have been touting Ms. Indrawati when and where I can to be selected to run with SBY in the up-coming elections. I am sure SBY does not read my blog so he probably has looked around and come to the obvious choice.  And it is (if true) an impressive choice.

The Jakarta Post reports the following today (it’s what is at the end of the article that caught my eye):

Mulyani hands over reform to officials
Aditya Suharmoko , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 04/28/2009 6:24 PM | National

“As the current government’s tenure is nearing its end in October, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati “hands over” the bureaucracy reform in her office to ministry officials.

“The term of this government ends in October, but the (bureaucracy) reform can be continued by (Finance Ministry) officials. Therefore I hand over this ‘baby’ reform of the Finance Ministry,” she said Tuesday while inaugurating the ministry officials.

She added that all Finance Ministry officials should achieve better performance for the sake of the public.

“Remember, you are public officials, so you have to bring the best for the country. I will not tolerate mediocre officials,” said Mulyani.

Mulyani is reportedly slated to be named as a vice presidential candidate and running mate of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the upcoming presidential elections.”

Is this so? Is Ms. Indrawati slated to be named as the vice presidential candidate and running mate of SBY? 

If true this would be a bold move. Her selection has the potential to change the face of Indonesian politics for years to come. I see nothing  negative here, rather this is, in light of the current political situation in Indonesia, a few degrees of magnitude very positive news.

It’s a move Obama would make.

Let’s hope it comes to pass.

Jakarta (Kalla and Probowo)

Someone like Kalla and Probowo

 ”Gerakan 30 September adalah gerakan semata-mata dalam tubuh Angkatan Darat.”

The Jakarta Post reports today that Joseph Kalla and Subianto Probowo met, I assume, to discuss the developing political situation as it is forming up for next months Presidential election.  Prabowo leads the The Great Indonesia Movement Party (GERINDRA) and polled about 4% of the recent legislative voting.

Prabowo touches base with VP Kalla
The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 04/26/2009 11:28 AM | National

Chairman of the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Prabowo Subiyanto touched base with Vice President and Golkar Party chairman Jusuf Kalla at the latter’s residence in Menteng, Jakarta, Sunday morning.

The meeting, initially scheduled for 10 a.m., commenced an hour later.

Prabowo, former chief of the Army’s Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad), has intensified personal and political lobbies and spent a large amount of funds on a media campaign to promote his party and presidential candidacy.

Failing to win the support of the Golkar Party for his presidential bid in 2004, Prabowo, who owns PT Kiani Pulp and Paper in East Kalimantan, founded Gerindra as his political vehicle to contest the presidential election in July.

According to a quick count survey, Gerindra came eighth after securing four percent of the total legislative votes during the legislative election on April 9.
Kalla, on the other hand, was recently nominated as a presidential candidate for Golkar after the party’s coalition with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party collapsed.

Golkar secured only 14 percent of total votes during the April 9 election, far fewer than the 25 percent a party needs to nominate its own presidential candidate. (amr)”

 

Who is Probowo? If you look him up on Wikipedia the very first thing you learn about him is:

“Prabowo Subianto is an Indonesian career soldier and politician. Married to former President Suharto’s daughter, ‘Titiek’, he was influential under the New Order administration.

The 1998 Revolution cut short his career, and was accused of involvement in various “riots, plunderings, rapes and murders”. Similar accusations were made by various NGO’s of his efforts to preserve Indonesian rule in East Timor. The controversial special forces unit Kopassus, which he commanded between 1995 and 1998, was implicated in these alleged crimes.”

Kevin O’Rourke in Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia  also includes a short biography of Prabowo:

“SUBIANTO, Prabowo aristocrat and son-in-law of Soeharto; Special Forces commander responsible for abducting pro-democracy activists in 1998; promoted to lieutenant-general and Kostrad commander in March 1998; blamed Wiranto for masterminding the May 1998 riots; discharged in August 1998.”

Not only was he responsible for abducting pro-democracy activists there is testimony of torture and “disapperances” under his command.”

Of course none of this is news. Prabowo has himself admitted to some very negative behavior. He may be reformed but he never faced the legal consequence of his crimes. He was denied a US visa in 2000 and my guess is that if he applied again he would be denied again.  He has spent a great deal of his own money on his campaign.

Jusuf Kalla, on the other hand is the kind of politician who is known for making quotable quotes such as this one reported by the Jakarta Post, August 8, 2006, regarding  the practice of some Indonesian women having short-term, informal relationships with foreigners: “If the janda [divorcees] get modest homes even if the tourists later leave them, then it’s OK. The children resulting from these relationships will have good genes. There will be more television actors and actresses from these pretty boys and girls.”

He is also the kind of politician who would show up at a catastrophe just to get some face time with the camera.

He is, reputedly, the leader of  GOLKAR. GOLKAR, as Adam Schwarz writes in A Nation in Waiting , is “ (from the Indonesian golongan karya, or functional groups).  The party was established by the Army in 1967 and was based on an “army-organized association of anti-communist groups started in 1964.”  GOLKAR  then became the Party of Soeharto as he adapted it as his “regime’s parlimentary vehicle.” GOLKAR also was used to justify the increasing political role of the Army as one of the functional groups.

I suppose this might explain the Kalla – Probowo meeting. Apparently bad habits are hard to quit.

The fact that GOLKAR was allowed to survive  Soeharto is remarkable in and of itself. It should have been banned. That it wasn’t made it easy for a political opportunist such as Kalla to pick up the pieces and make it his own political vehicle. 

On April 4, 2009 the Jakarta Post reported that,  ”Golkar Party Chairman Jusuf Kalla said his party would continue to strive towards the realization of the goals of the party’s founders, as well those of the late Soeharto, to developing the country.” 

Apparently he would rather set the country back ten years than to look toward the future.

At any rate SBY has been coy about the who of the next VP, other than to say it should be someone with integrity and who has the best interests of the nation at heart. This is actually not a bad criteria for selecting the VP.

My choice of course in Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the current Finance Minister.

Can bloggers influence politics? In the last US election they certainly appeared to have some degree of influence. Obama did use the internet to his advantage. So, I would like to start up a campaign to draft Indrawati for VP. If you agree write a post in support of Indrawati. Maybe the suggestion will work itself up and into SBYs brain and he will see his chance to change Indonesian politics in a way it hasn’t changed since the black days of Soeharto.

Jakarta (the next Vice President of Indonesia)

 

 

You can check out some of the other possible candidates here …>go to article

But I vote for Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

Forbes Magazine lists her as the 23rd most powerful woman in the world

“Since Indrawati’s 2005 appointment as Indonesia’s finance minister, the country’s foreign exchange reserves reached an all-time high of $50 billion, and foreign investment skyrocketed. She has fought against government corruption, created tax incentives and simplified investment laws. Her performance earned her a promotion. In June Indrawati was named to run the country’s economic affairs.”

And today in The Jakarta Post it is reported that there is some disatisfaction with Mulyani in certain political circles.  It is quite obvious what’s going on here.

Efforts seen to unseat Sri Mulyani: Sources
Rendi A. Witular and Aditya Suharmoko , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 10/22/2008 10:53 AM | Headlines

Vested interests are launching a covert attempt to replace Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati following her stern moves to guard the state budget from abuse and clamp down on violators, sources say.

Efforts to topple the “iron lady” intensified after she turned down requests from a major conglomerate for government assistance in saving its business empire in the wake of the global financial meltdown, sources said.

“Speculation has been rife for the past two or three weeks. I think the political motive is bigger than those of the economy, with the market showing confidence in the minister,” said Andi Rahmat, a member of the House of Representatives’ Commission XI, which oversees financial affairs, on Tuesday.

Andi said a possible replacement for Mulyani, proposed by the vested interest, was Darmin Nasution, the Finance Ministry’s director general of taxation.

“It’s going to be a very risky move by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to replace Mulyani at a time when a figure like her is badly needed to shield Indonesia from the impact of the global downturn,” he said.

Finance Ministry sources and some businessmen said one of the moves being made to discredit Mulyani was to promote an image of her as lacking nationalism, a sentiment widely touted since her appointment as minister back in 2004.

Mulyani’s previous post as an executive at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been used by her opponents to question her nationalism following criticism over the agency’s poor performance in helping the country survive the late-1997 Asian financial crisis.

Economist Faisal Basri, Mulyani’s close friend and former colleague at the University of Indonesia, blamed certain parties, inconvenienced by Mulyani’s moves to deal with the financial meltdown, as the main sponsors of the efforts.

“There are some politicians who suffered losses from the havoc in the stock market. Besides, knowing Mulyani well, it is not her ’style’ to take a policy of suddenly closing down the stock market,” he said.

Faisal added it was unlikely Mulyani would be replaced by Darmin — a close confidant of hers and a mentor during her time at the University of Indonesia.

Ministry sources say businessmen involved in violations in the mining sector, the customs and excise business, and the tax sector were among those teaming up with businessmen who recently got burned in the stock market and could not recover their losses.

Mulyani has been praised for her efforts in reforming the once corruption-infested customs and tax offices, including refusing to allow 10 helicopters belonging to a firm linked to Vice President Jusuf Kalla to pass through customs before paying duties.

Her courage was on show again when she ordered state-run Bank Mandiri to transfer disputed funds worth Rp 1.23 trillion (US$ 126 million) from Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra, son of the late former president Soeharto, to the state account for development use.

However, her latest move in refusing to help a politically wired business group has ignited a backlash of rage which may cost her her job unless Yudhoyono ensures Mulyani remains in her post until his administration ends.

Finance Ministry spokesman Samsuar Said said the “cost will be too expensive for the Cabinet” if Mulyani leaves before the current administration ends its term next year.

“Use common sense. What is the motive in this kind of situation for unseating her?” he said.

Economist Pande Raja Silalahi said some businessmen were likely offended by Mulyani’s statement during a recent speech at the office of the powerful lobby group the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin).

“I am the Finance Minister, my job is to protect the state fund. Companies have a job to protect their own financial affairs. If they fail, it is their fault and they deserve to go bust,” said Pande, quoting Mulyani.“

 

Last August  theage.com.au ran an article which I include below.  All the more reason why Mulyani should be selected for VP and all the more reason why she probably will not.

Asia’s shining example
Tim Colebatch
August 5, 2008

SRI Mulyani Indrawati could teach her APEC colleagues something about structural reform. In a society investors judge as one of the most corrupt in the world, Indonesia’s award-winning Finance Minister is spearheading a radical, unorthodox campaign to wipe out corruption.

When APEC ministers and officials talk about structural reform – as they are doing in Melbourne this week – the point of it often is as clear as mud. When Sri Mulyani talks about her war on corruption, it’s as clear as the midday sun over Java.

Last September she launched a campaign to clean up the Supreme Court, the audit office, and her own ministry – including the tax office and the customs service, long seen as havens for officials on the take.

Her tactics were not mere exhortation. At the Customs Office she transferred all 1300 staff, replaced them with 800 new officers, who were paid roughly four times as much as their predecessors – and told them that if they took bribes, they’d be put on trial.

“If people are not receiving salaries of a realistic level, it is impossible to ask them to work properly,” Sri Mulyani explains. The new salaries, she says, were still below private sector pay, but “eliminated the most basic distortions”. Without that, she says, she could not have begun.

“I told them: ‘If, after this, you act corruptly, I will not apologise for punishing you with the harshest of punishments.’ “

She was not expecting an overnight miracle, but concedes it hurt when some months later, acting on a tip-off, the Corruption Eradication Commission raided the customs office at Jakarta’s port, Tanjung Priok, and found envelope after envelope of banknotes stuffed in filing cabinets, office drawers, even down officers’ socks. That haul found about $60,000 – some of it in Australian dollars.

Sri Mulyani apologised to Indonesians, but does not concede defeat. “Was I expecting that after six months, everybody would become clean?” she asks. “Certainly not. I have 62,000 people working for me. Will all the judges immediately become good? No, this is going to be a continuous battle, which leaders must wage constantly.”

Transparency International’s 2007 chart ranks Indonesia among the 40 most corrupt countries in the world, as judged by investors. In transparency, Indonesia ranks with Russia as equal 143rd of 180 countries. To give you an idea of how bad that is, China and India are equal 72nd, Malaysia 43rd and Singapore equal 4th.

Corruption is widely seen as a brake on Indonesia’s ability to attract foreign investment, and hence, growth. The OECD’s recent report on Indonesia – another first for the OECD under the new leadership of Angel Gurria – notes that its growth rate has picked up to 6% plus, which is not enough to reduce poverty rapidly, and Indonesia lags behind Asia’s leaders in attracting foreign investment.

Sri Mulyani says she would rather have solid sustainable growth than a world-beating pace. One of the Government’s top priorities, she says, is to stop illegal logging on Sumatra and Kalimantan, and reverse Indonesia’s deforestation by planting more forest than is cleared. She likes the Garnaut report’s idea of Australia allowing firms to offset carbon emissions by preserving forests in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

A frequent visitor here, Sri Mulyani has long been seen as a rising star. The daughter of an academic in Semarang, Central Java’s biggest city, she studied at the elite University of Indonesia, becoming a protege of Widjojo Nitisastro, head of the “Berkeley mafia” of free-market economists who shaped Soeharto’s very successful reforms of the ’60s and ’70s. After postgraduate studies in the US, she returned to head a think tank at her old university, married and had three children, became an economic adviser to former president Abdurrahman Wahid, then went back to the US and became the International Monetary Fund’s executive director for East Asia and Pacific, until President Yudhoyono summoned her to join his cabinet.

She was minister for development planning when the tsunami struck Aceh. Amid the tragedy, she saw the opportunity to rebuild not only infrastructure but institutions. Her ally, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, another on Jakarta’s short list of notoriously clean ministers, was put in charge of Aceh reconstruction, and revolutionised the system by appointing a small staff, paying them something like private sector wages, and insisting that all accounts must go to the Finance Ministry to reduce the scope for corruption.

Soon Sri Mulyani was Finance Minister, tackling tax reform, introducing a new foreign investment law, reforming state finances to make them more transparent, reducing fuel subsidies – and tackling corruption. For two years in a row she has been named Finance Minister of the Year by specialist magazines: Euromoney (2006) and The Banker (2007).

When heads rolled recently at Bank Indonesia – after the revelation that it had paid $3.7 million of state funds in 2003-04 in bribes to MPs to pass new banking laws – chief economics minister Boediono took charge of the central bank, and Sri Mulyani took on his job as well as her own.

The Jakarta Post, not always easy to please, applauded her as the best choice for the job. “She has proved her technical skills in managing the macro-economy,” it said, “and shown courage, consistency and impeccable integrity in treading the messy politics of development in a newly democratic system like Indonesia.”

Online celebrity site TokohIndonesia.com describes her as “a prima donna, smart, attractive and popular”. But prima donnas don’t last. Sri Mulyani has rolled with the punches and hung in there to keep reform going. She can tell Wayne Swan how to do it.”

If SBY offered up Mulyani for the position of Vice President of Indonesia it would be a bold move. It certainly would not be the politics as usual. It would insulate him from the back stabbing and all but useless Kalla,  show up Megawati for the intellectual lightweight that she is, and hugely bolster confidence in Indonesia’s economic outlook.  Unfortunately, and there always seems to be an unfortunately when it comes to Indonesian politics, SBY will likely have to bargain the VP position away.

Jakarta (you can’t fool all the people all of the time)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yellow Padang: Golkar Party chairman Jusuf Kalla speaks to thousands of party supporters at Imam Bonjol square in Padang, West Sumatra, on Sunday. Antara/Saptono

As the old saying goes – You can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.

That GOLKAR still even exists as a politcal party in Indonesia is rather amazing given that it was an invention of Soeharto and company to pretend that there was a semblance of credibility to his regime.  GOLKAR was (is) a tool, like a hammer is a tool. Given that, the article below from The Jakarta Post is rather (politically) stunning.

Kalla: Golkar to continue Soeharto’s ideals
The Jakarta Post | Sat, 04/04/2009 9:27 PM | National

Golkar Party Chairman Jusuf Kalla said his party would continue to strive towards the realization of the goals of the party’s founders, as well those of the late Soeharto, to developing the country.

“The Golkar Party will continue the ideals of its founders including the late Soeharto so that the country will progress,” he said at a campaign rally in Sukoharjo, Central Java, state news agency Antara has reported.

This was the first time Kalla, who is also the vice president, mentioned the name of the former Indonesian president in campaigning.

The thousands of people attending the rally applauded upon hearing Soeharto’s name mentioned.

On the occasion Kalla assured that if Golkar wins the majority of votes in the election it would meet all the needs of the people including for roads, basic necessaries and free education.

“Golkar always wants to improve the welfare of the nation,” he said.

He said Indonesia must be more advanced in the future, meaning that all its people’s needs could be met. “With Golkar, Indonesia certainly will be better,” he said in his campaign speech.”

What would that exactly mean? Repression of opponents, corruption, nepotism, political power to the generals, graft, embezzlement, larceny, murder.  Kalla has shown  his hand.

Jakarta (the defining moment)

Gray Matter – ThinkerBelle

As George W. Bush is busy revising and rewriting his history the defining moment of his Presidency occurred during a news conference in Iraq. If I remember anything about his tortuous presidency it will be this moment and his clueless after conference reaction: “Hey, he threw a shoe, so what, it doesn’t mean anything” or something to that effect. If you have not seen the video it is posted below.

THIS IS the defining moment of  George W. Bush.

From the New York Times 12/16/2008:

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

By Chris Suellentrop

Free the shoe-thrower: An editorial in The Wall Street Journal embraces Muntader al-Zaidi for hurling his shoes at President Bush. “Congratulations, Iraq: You really are a free country,” the editorial states.

The editorial also asks the Iraqi government to “let Mr. Zaidi walk free.” It states:

For its part, the Iraqi government is not amused. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called Mr. Zaidi’s stunt a “shameful, savage act” and demanded an apology from the reporter’s employers. So far, none has been forthcoming, and Mr. Zaidi potentially faces jail time for harming a visiting dignitary.

Mr. Zaidi works for an anti-American TV outlet, and was known to sign off on his televised reports from “occupied Baghdad.” But if Mr. Maliki wants his revenge, he could do no better than to let Mr. Zaidi walk free. As for Mr. Bush’s critics, both in the West and the Arab world, they will see one more opportunity to bemoan the folly of Iraq’s liberation. We suspect many Iraqis will reflect on what would have been the fate of any journalist who dared to throw his shoes at Saddam Hussein.

The Journal editorial was published before Mr. Zaidi’s brother accused the Iraqi government of torturing the shoe-thrower. “The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody,” the BBC reports. “Muntadar al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.”

If the accusations are true, the pseudonymous liberal blogger who writes as “Digby” thinks President Bush should intervene on Mr. Zaidi’s behalf. “I actually thought Bush handled this thing quite well,” she writes. “He was literally quick on his feet and didn’t take it too seriously. (I thought the ‘I saw into his sole’ thing was particularly good.)” She continues:

He could do a great thing right now by making a public appeal to the Iraqis to pardon this man. It would be magnanimous and do his personal reputation a world of good – and it would be good for both countries.

Just an Idea

I am sure it would not be proper to suggest that all the good men and women  of Jakarta pay a final heartfelt tribute of farewell to George W. Bush by visiting the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and tossing a few shoes over the wall.  Say a few thousand shoes.  No, that would probably not be proper at all and I certainly  would not want to do anything to suggest such an action.

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Jakarta (Obama vs. McCain)

From: Common Dreams

This photo is from last night’s Presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.

As they say, one picture is worth a thousand words and this sums it all up pretty well and saves me a lot of time having to write something.

Now, who would YOU vote for?

 

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Jakarta (the year of living dangerously)

 

Just a note or two here.

I am busy with school. My site stats are now more influenced by students returning to school looking for resources about Jakarta than porn addicts looking for “Javanese sex positions” (which was actually one search phrase used to get to my site believe it or not).

I am working on some household organizing here. I have linked pdf. files with the journal citations on the Urban Studies Reading List page. This is still a work in progress and I will say more on that later but for now note the articles are interesting and worth a look. I hope it will prove useful, especially for students in Jakarta who might not have these resources.

AND…

The Republican Party of the United States of America is having its convention this week. It was almost erased by Hurricane Gustav but they are back at it (although Gustav did afford a convenient excuse for some not to show up, namely our current President).

As you may or may not know the Republican candidate, who is running against Barack Obama, is John McCain.  McCain is 72 years old, a cancer survivor, and a former fighter pilot who was shot down during the Vietnam War and then spent five years as a POW in the famous Hanoi Hilton. You get the picture? He is an American WAR HERO. But I don’t believe any of it.

Imagine, if you will, that you live in a poor country, a VERY poor country. Say your country was once a European colony for several hundred years. Now say you were fighting a national war of liberation and then along comes the most powerful country in the world which starts to drop tons and tons and tons of bombs on your villages, towns, and cities. 

If you shot down one of those planes and captured the pilot what would you have done?

Frankly, John McCain is lucky to be alive.

If it had been me and my fellow villagers who had captured him I assure you I would have pitch-forked him through the heart and stuck his head atop a sharpened bamboo pike.

No, John McCain is no hero of mine. He deserved what he got and more that he didn’t get. Anyone who understands the Vietnam war  understands that. A poor people in a poor country defeated, in detail, the most powerful nation on the earth. The United States threw everything they had, short of a nuclear weapon, at that country.

The Vietnamese would not bend or break.

Go figure.

Still, it is difficult to call McCain a war criminal in light of what has transpired over the last five years. Maybe he is just a minor league player looking to be promoted to the big leagues of World War III. No joke.

Now, McCain, being the great WAR HERO that he is, just this week picked Sarah Palin as his Vice presidential running mate. Here is what the New York Times editorial said of this today:

Editorial
Candidate McCain’s Big Decision

Published: September 2, 2008

“As far as we can tell, Mr. McCain and his aides did almost no due diligence before choosing Ms. Palin, raising serious questions about his management skills. The fact that Ms. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant is irrelevant to her candidacy. There are, however, very serious questions about her political past and her ideology, including her links to a party advocating Alaska’s secession from the nation.

If Mr. McCain wanted to break with his party’s past and choose the Republicans’ first female presidential candidate, there a number of politicians out there with far greater experience and stature than Ms. Palin, who has been in Alaska’s Statehouse for less than two years.

Before she was elected governor, she was mayor of a tiny Anchorage suburb, where her greatest accomplishment was raising the sales tax to build a hockey rink. According to Time magazine, she also sought to have books banned from the local library and threatened to fire the librarian.

For Mr. McCain to go on claiming that Mr. Obama has too little experience to be president after almost three years in the United States Senate is laughable now that he has announced that someone with no national or foreign policy experience is qualified to replace him, if necessary.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who has been one of Mr. McCain’s most loyal friends, said Tuesday that he was certain that Ms. Palin would take the right positions on issues like Iraq, Russia’s invasion of Georgia and Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. That seemed based largely on his repeated assertion that Ms. Palin would be tended by Mr. McCain’s foreign policy advisers. That was not much of an endorsement.

Some of the things Ms. Palin has had to say in the recent past about foreign policy are especially worrisome. In a speech last June to her former church in Wasilla, Ms. Palin said the war in Iraq was “a task that is from God.” Mr. Bush made similar claims as he rejected all sound mortal advice on how to conduct the war.

Mr. McCain, Mr. Graham and others also claim that Ms. Palin is a fearless reformer who is committed to fighting waste, fraud and earmarks. Ms. Palin did show courage taking on some of the Alaska Republican Party’s most sleazy politicians. But she also was an eager recipient of earmarked money as a mayor and governor.

Mayor Palin gathered up $27 million in subsidies from Washington, $15 million of it for a railroad from her town to the ski resort hometown of Senator Ted Stevens, now under indictment for failing to report gifts.

The Republicans are presenting Ms. Palin as a crusader against Mr. Stevens’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” The record says otherwise; she initially supported Mr. Stevens’s boondoggle, diverting the money to other projects when the bridge became a political disaster. In her speech to the Wasilla Assembly of God in June, Ms. Palin said it was “God’s will” that the federal government contribute to a $30 billion gas pipeline she wants built in Alaska.”

Then there is this from Joe Klein, Time Magazine:

September 3, 2008 2:04
Angry Amateurs

The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is the McCain campaign’s war against the press. This has been building for some time. Those of us who have criticized the candidate–and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past–have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year. But things have gotten much worse in recent days: there was McCain’s rude, bizarre interview with Time Magazine last week. Yesterday, McCain refused to an interview with Larry King, for God’s sake, because Campbell Brown had been caught in the commission of journalism on CNN the night before, asking McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds what decisions Sarah Palin had made as commander-in-chief of the Alaska national guard. (There was an answer that the unprepared Bounds didn’t have: she had deployed them to fight fires.)

So what’s going on here? Two things. McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he’s ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field…any intimations that he’s gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable.

The second thing is more insidious: Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair–sexist (you gotta love it)–personal assault going on against Palin and her family. This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media–about the substance of Palin’s record as mayor and governor. Sure, there are a few outliers–and the tabloid press–who have fixed on baby stories. That was inevitable….the flip side of the personal stories that the McCain team thought would work to their advantage–Palin’s moose-hunting and wolf-shooting, and her admirable decision to have a Down Syndrome baby. And yes, when we all fix on the same story, whether it’s a hurricane or a little-known politician, a zoo ensues. But the media coverage of the Palin story has been well within the bounds of responsibility. Schmidt is trying to make it seem otherwise, a desperate tactic.

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme. …>go to article

ONLY the Republicans can spin dog shit into cotton candy and fully expect Americans to eat it.

Unfortunately they often do eat it and even come back for more.

Unfortunately the rest of the world pays for it.

Go figure.

This is the person who will be one heart beat away from becoming President of the United States should the 72 year old McCain not be able to complete his term in office.

I pray that this bitter cup pass from us.

 

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Jakarta (Ten Years After, Inside Indonesia)

University of Indonesia

Jakarta Urban Blog highly  recommends  Issue 92: April – June edition of Inside Indonesia . With the ten year anniversary of the May 12, 1998 events at Trisakti University and the Jakarta riots just passing the current issue of Inside Indonesia is well worth spending some time with. …> go to site

From the Introduction by Gerry van Klinken:

“Indonesia has made an amazing transformation these last ten years. Too often this story is buried among the bad news. The military no longer dominates every level of government, as it did during the New Order. Free elections have been held many times. The long-running separatist wars in East Timor and Aceh have been resolved. This edition of Inside Indonesia looks backward and forward. It takes an honest look at how far the country has come down the road towards meaningful democracy, and how much further it might still go.

Vedi Hadiz and Olle Törnquist lead off with their answers to the central question: ‘How far to meaningful democracy?’ They agree on two points. First, Indonesia is now definitely a democracy, but second, it is a democracy with weaknesses. They differ on how much more forward movement can be expected. Read them both, then make up your own mind! We value your response.

Two other articles focus specifically on political parties. Both Marcus Mietzner and Andreas Ufen think the parties are better than most people seem to feel. Indonesian parties have deeper roots in society and history than Philippine and Thai ones, writes Ufen. Rather than give the parties a bad rap for corruption, writes Mietzner, people should make sure they are properly financed so they don’t have to be corrupt.

The last two articles look at the two toughest nuts for post-Suharto democratisers to crack. Have a look at Edward Aspinall ’s piece on Aceh, and Jun Honna ’s on the military. Here the record is mixed: an astonishing turn for the better in Aceh on the one hand, but far too little change in the military, on the other. One thing is for sure: Indonesia does not need the military to ‘hold the country together’, as so many people said for so long”.