INDONESIA A NEWS

INDONESIA's ambassador has asked the Australian Federal Police to explain why they are investigating the killings of five Australian-based journalists at Balibo 34 years ago.Primo Alui Joelianto said he rang the new AFP Commissioner, Tony Negus, yesterday to discuss the investigation.''I just wanted to seek clarification of why he took the decision to start the investigation, '' Mr Joelianto said. Mr Negus explained to him the investigation was based on information referred to the police by the NSW Coroner. ''It's the legal process,'' Mr Joelianto said. ''We can understand that.''The ambassador said the Indonesian Government was concerned about the investigation. ''It cannot be beneficial for our relations,'' he said. Mr Joelianto said Indonesia would not send its citizens to Australia for trial. The men were killed a long time ago, he said, and Indonesia had considered the case closed.Mr Joelianto said the Foreign...

Freeport, operator of the giant Grasberg goldmine in West Papua, is in the public spotlight once again over its financial relationship with the Indonesian security forces. After almost forty years of largely fruitless protest, Amungme and Kamoro indigenous owners of the Freeport concession area in West Papua can be forgiven their cynicism at the latest push for accountability from the US-based mining company, Freeport. The Amungme, the traditional landowners of the Grasberg mine site, have been protesting since negotiations over the mine began. Protests against Freeport were recorded in 1967 even before the Contract of Work was signed between General Suharto and Freeport, and protests leading to the deaths of four people were recorded in 1968.[1] Since then, hundreds of human rights abuses have been reported in the mine area. During a recent interview in Jakarta, the respected Amungme traditional leader ('Mama') Yosepha Alomang demonstrated that she did not need to read the New...

For Indonesians, it is a point scored in a long-running rivalry with their neighbor Malaysia: The United Nations has decided to recognize Indonesian batik as one of the world's important cultural traditions. After a run of what Indonesian nationalists view as Malaysia's poaching of its culture, the announcement last week that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization would add batik to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list at a ceremony at the end of this month was especially welcome. To celebrate, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has asked all Indonesians to wear batik on Oct. 2."It is so important that the world finally recognize and acknowledge batik as an Indonesian heritage," said Obin, one of the country's leading fashion designers. "It is a part of our soul."But bragging rights to batik, the process of creating intricate patterns on textiles with wax-resistant dyes, is only one of a slew of issues - cultural, social an...

The five were Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Tony Stewart Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says ties with Australia may be harmed by a war crimes inquiry into five journalists' deaths in East Timor.Australian police earlier announced the inquiry into the deaths of the "Balibo Five" which happened during Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975. President Susilo said to reopen the case was not in the spirit of the relationship the two countries shared. Indonesia maintains the journalists were killed accidentally in cross-fire. This version of events has been accepted by successive Australian governments. But in 2007 an Australian coroner found that the the two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander were executed by Indonesian special forces in the border town of Balibo to stop them revealing details of an impending Indonesian invasion. 'Past mistakes'Mr Yudhoyono implied that Australian history showed it ...

Married Muslims in Indonesia's staunchly Islamic province of Aceh could be publicly stoned for committing adultery under a new piece of legislation that the autonomous province's legislature is scheduled to pass on Monday.With partial Shariah law already in place under the broad autonomy accorded to end almost three decades of violent separatist conflict, Aceh looks set to take a giant and controversial step with the law, which also mandates that single Muslims caught having premarital sex will get 100 lashes with a whip.The drastic punishments are part of a regional regulations bill on local customs (qanun) regarding Islamic crimes (jinayat) that the Aceh Provincial Legislature (DPRA) will endorse, Raihan Iskandar, deputy chairman of the body, told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday.Iskandar, a member of the conservative Islam-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said a special legislative committee had finished deliberating the bill after receiving input from various groups."...

AFTER more than a decade in the wilderness, the family of Indonesia's former ruler Soeharto is making a comeback into political life, staging a bold attempt to wrest control of the Golkar party created by their father and re-establish a dynasty that foundered amid the mayhem that ended his dictatorship. For Tommy Soeharto - the youngest of the six Soeharto children and a flamboyant playboy who spent four years in prison for ordering the murder of a Supreme Court judge - the motives could not be purer.''I have a moral obligation to help advance the party which was founded and built by my father,'' he said in announcing his candidacy for the chairmanship of Golkar last month.With his criminal record and notorious reputation as a strongman and corrupter, Tommy's bid for power could struggle. But attention is turning to his eldest sister - Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, widely known as Tutut. Either way, says a political analyst, Burhanuddin Muhtadi, the motives for the ...