INDONESIA A NEWS

http://www.thejakar taglobe.com/ opinion/interloc utors-of- indonesian- islam/560447 Interlocutors of Indonesian Islam Ahmad Najib Burhani | December 08, 2012 A few months ago, the Japanese anthropologist Mitsuo Nakamura told me that studying Nahdlatul Ulama as an organization was beyond the imagination of any American scholar from the 1950s to the ’70s. But he is not the only academic to have noticed this. George McT. Kahin of Cornell University stated the same thing. Even NU-expert Martin van Bruinessen was not expecting to study NU as his primary focus when he came to Indonesia for the first time in the 1980s.   During the early decades of Indonesian independence, NU was relatively unorganized and its management was largely based on the authority of religious teachers ( kyai ). Of course there were a number of scholars who studied NU-affiliated religious schools ( pesantren ) and its kyai, but not NU as an organization.   Even though NU was one of the ...

The problems began shortly after Tajul Muluk, a Shiite cleric, opened a boarding school in 2004. The school, in a predominantly Sunni Muslim part of East Java, raised local tensions, and in 2006 it was attacked by thousands of villagers. When a mob set fire to the school and several homes last December, many Shiites saw it as just the latest episode in a simmering sectarian conflict — one that they say has been ignored by the police and exploited by Islamists purporting to preserve the purity of the Muslim faith.   Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has long been considered a place where different religious and ethnic groups can live in harmony and where Islam can work with democracy.   But that perception has been repeatedly brought into question lately. In East Java, Sunni leaders are pushing the provincial government to adopt a regulation limiting the spread of Shiite Islam. It would prevent the country’s two major Shiite organizations from ...

As violence escalates in West Papua, one cannot help but recall East Timor and wonder how much worse it must get before Australia and the international community will act. Tensions are at breaking point in the easternmost province of Indonesia after the police shooting of independence activist Mako Tabuni. Human rights activists report Tabuni was unarmed when shot six times by the Australian-trained Detachment 88 forces. Tabuni was deputy chairman of the West Papua National Committee, an organisation advocating independence and the right to self-determination under international law. Tabuni had also been campaigning for an investigation into a recent spate of military killings. The shooting follows years of violence. At least 16 people have been killed in the past month, according to human rights groups, and hundreds of homes raided, with many burnt to the ground. Thousands are reported to be evacuating, seeking refuge in the forest or heading for refugee camps in Papua ...

Since its founding in 1998, hardline vigilante group the Islamic Defenders Front (known by its Indonesian acronym FPI) has perpetuated violence in the name of Islamic morality. Now, Indonesians are calling for an end to the intimidation and intolerance, signaling growing rejection of the group's and its supporters' radical religious ideology.  Palangka Raya, the capital of Central Kalimantan province, was in the national headlines two weeks ago when its residents stopped FPI leaders from landing at the town's airport. Four FPI leaders had flown there to officiate the opening of a new provincial FPI branch but in an act of defiance a crowd of about 800 people staged a protest.  A few hundred, mainly indigenous Dayak people, forced their way onto the airport's apron and runway to confront the FPI officials. Protesters dispersed only when airport officials convinced them that the FPI members would remain on board the plane and would travel on to another destination.  ...

The year 2011 was a tumultuous one for the island of New Guinea, the world's second-largest and perhaps most politically divided island. Papua New Guinea (PNG), the independent country on the island's eastern half, suffered from a four-month political standoff that was at least temporarily resolved in late December.  On the island's western half, consisting of two Indonesian provinces, what started out as a strike over wages at the Grasberg mine spiraled into four months of protests which fueled a revival of the Papuan independence movement. While relative peace had been restored on both sides of the island by year's end, lasting stability will depend on a number of mutable factors in the year ahead.  The key figure in the PNG political crisis - and also the key figure in the country since its independence - is Sir Michael Somare. Somare headed the first "indigenous" government from 1972-1975 before PNG acquired official independence from Australia in 1975....

THE military chief of West Papua's Jayapura district last night denied his troops had shot into a crowd of pro-independence activists and killed at least one. Major General Erfi Triassunu said TNI troops and police had only fired into the air to break up the Third Papuan People's Congress after an activist began reading a declaration of independence from Indonesia. According to two reporters at the scene at the Lapangan Zakeus sports ground in Jayapura, police and soldiers broke up the congress's final session, scattering about 5000 activists and taking away at least 100 under arrest. They included Papua Customary Council chairman Forkorus Yaboisembut, who had had just been elected president of a "transitional government for the Republic of West Papua", according to the Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy. Trouble erupted when he led the reading of the declaration and raised a banned Morning Star flag. However, the reporters did not confirm initia...

NDONESIAN security forces opened fire on thousands of striking workers at Freeport-McMoRan' s gold and copper mine early yesterday, killing one man and critically wounding six, a union official said. Police said it was too early to comment and officials from Arizona-based Freeport were preparing an official statement. Workers at the Grasberg mine in West Papua kicked off a strike on September 15, demanding pay increases to $17.50 to $43 an hour from the present $2.10 to $3.50 an hour. About 90 per cent of the mine's 12,000 employees are taking part. Union leader Manuel Maniambo said thousands of striking workers headed to the mine in the mountains by bus and by foot to try to stop replacement workers. When security forces tried to block them, they became angry, throwing rocks and yelling insults, he said. The troops opened fire, killing one worker and leaving another hospitalised in critical condition, Mr Maniambo said. A man named Hanseba died in hospital of gunshot woun...

IN THE aftermath of last week's suicide bombing by a rogue Islamist of a church in the Central Java city of Solo, messages flew around the social networking site Twitter urging followers to go to an extremist website. There, on arrahmah.com, was an article condemning Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for his strong and quickly delivered words against the violent act in Solo, contrasting it with a supposedly weak response to the alleged attacks on Muslims by Christians in Ambon. It continued with a litany of falsehoods, including claims that a village had been burnt down and that thousands of Muslims remained in mosques in Ambon, seeking refuge from the crusader hordes. In two days some 20,000 people had retweeted the message. Disturbingly, it was just the latest in a series of highly inflammatory tweets, SMS and Facebook postings sowing the seeds of disharmony and promoting terrorism in Indonesia. Last month, there were two striking examples of the power of social m...

Dozens of churches in Indonesia come under attack every year and the country's president is failing to take action to stop it - according to a leading Catholic peace activist who has produced a report setting out the scale of the problem. Since 2006, more than 200 attacks on churches have been recorded by the Indonesian committee on religion and peace under Theophilus Bela, president of the Jakarta Christian community forum. In a report submitted to Aid to the Church in Need, Mr Bela stated that in the first five months of this year there were 14 attacks on churches and 46 in 2010 as a whole. Mr Bela blamed Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his government for not doing enough to tackle Islamist anti-Christian violence. He said: "President Yudhoyono sleeps if there is an attack on Christian churches. If the president sleeps, so do the police." Mr Bela reported that since Mr Yudhoyono became president in May 2004, there have been 286 attacks on churches,...

MUHAMMAD Nazaruddin, the former Democratic Party treasurer who is implicated in a bribery case, fled to Singapore on Monday, Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar said. 'We have banned (Nazaruddin from fleeing overseas) from May 24, but on May 23 he went to Singapore on Garuda (Airlines),' Mr Patrialis said, as quoted by tempointeraktif. com. The Immigration office received a request from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to ban Nazaruddin from traveling overseas on Tuesday at 6pm. Mr Patrialis said that he did not know if Nazaruddin had returned. Nazaruddin is implicated in an alleged bribery case centering on the construction of a SEA Games athletes' dormitory in Palembang, South Sumatera. The KPK has named Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry secretary Wafid Muharram, businesswoman Rosalinda Manurung and a top executive of PT Duta Graha Indah Muhammad El Idris as suspects.

INDONESIA'S independent anti-corruption watchdog will not launch a probe into allegations in US diplomatic cables that the country's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was implicated in corruption. The stance of the Corruption Eradication Commission was backed by the country's leading anti-graft non-government organisation, Indonesia Corruption Watch. The developments came as protesters held a demonstration at the US embassy, tearing up copies of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald demanding an apology. Another group called the Association of Advocates for People launched a legal action in a Central Jakarta court against the US government and both papers. They are seeking damages of $US1 billion. The cables, revealed in The Age after being obtained from WikiLeaks, detailed allegations that Dr Yudhoyono had spied on political rivals, quashed a corruption probe and received money from businessman Tomy Winata via a middleman. The President has denied the allegations a...

The first week of February marked the annual celebration of World Interfaith Harmony Week, a UN resolution that aimed to promote religious and cultural understanding among people of different faiths. But proceedings were marred by the cruellest of events in Indonesia, with celebrations tarnished by a string of vicious attacks on the nation's religious minorities. The most serious attack was waged against the Ahmadiyah sect in Banten, which resulted in three of its members being beaten to death at the hands of the Islamic Defenders Front, a hardline Islamic group. The history between the two has been fractious at best, but in recent times the conflict has assumed an internecine edge. Footage of the bloody attack in Banten on 6 February showed police officers providing an embarrassingly feeble match for a crowd of 1,500 villagers, equipped with machetes, rocks and bamboo sticks. Ahmadiyah Muslims believe Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was Islam's last prophet, and as such find themselves a...