Moluccas International Campaign for Human Rights

Sunset in Ambon January 2007

 

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Boys Racing Canoes with Mount Api in the background, Banda Islands, Maluku

 

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WHAT CAUSES POVERTY IN MALUKU?

The poverty level in Maluku Province has increase substantially since 2004. The current poverty level is at approx.60%, an increase of ~30% since 2004. As a result, Maluku is now in "ABSOLUTE POVERTY". Development has not taken place in Maluku, thus it's safe to say that the Provincial Government of Maluku has abandoned its people, the poor Moluccans. The social conflict that took place in Maluku between 1999 to 2003 has opened up a lot of opportunities for Maluku to speed up its recovery & development processes simply because post conflict era has brought abundant funding to Maluku, be it from national sources as well as international supports. The President Decree no.6 (INPRES 6) is one very good example where both Maluku & North Maluku provinces have been given special funds to rebuild themselves. This and other forms of funds have been pouring into Maluku, but none is able to even maintain the poverty level. Instead, the poverty level is rapidly increasing!! The World Bank's "Voices of the Poor", based on research with over 20,000 poor people in 23 countries, identifies a range of factors which poor people identify as part of poverty. These include:

1.precarious livelihoods, 2.excluded locations, 3.physical limitations, 4.gender relationships, 5.problems in social relationships, 6.lack of security, 7.abuse by those in power, 8.disempowering institutions, 9. limited capabilities, and 10. weak community organisations.

Out of the 10 factors of poverty, point number 7 & 8 are highlighted simply because they're most relevant to Maluku's current condition. The Government of Maluku Province has frequently abusing its power by unjustly & incorrectly spending its money. With over Rp.10 Triliun of incoming fund in the past 3 years, Maluku should be better off by now. Additionally, The Government of Maluku has also disempowered its State-Owned enterprises such as PD Panca Karya by placing incompetent individuals to sit on the executive positions. Their appointments have disabled the institution to grow and achieve the ideal profitability level as it should have been able to accomplish. This is the true nepotism at its best! In West Southeastern part of Maluku, out of 18,000 primary school graduates each year, only 4,000 are able to enter into high school. Maluku is loosing at least 14,000 new generation each year! This has been going on for sometimes and the Provincial Government of Maluku has done very little to overcome this critical issue. Four (4) years after the social conflict, over 9,000 refugees are still stranded. To date, no clear picture of what probable solutions that the Provincial Government will take to finally solve this prolonged issue! The international communities are urged to speak up & put pressure to the Provincial Government of Maluku to seriously take care of its two main issues: Poverty & Refugees. Maluku has been going against The Millenium Development Goals set by the whole world, i.e. to reduce poverty by halve in 2015. Instead, Maluku has been actively increasing its poverty level significantly!

Send your Letter of Concern to the following Officials:

Mr. Karel Albert Ralahalu Governor of Maluku 2nd floor Jl. Raya Pattimura no.1 Ambon, Maluku 97128 Phone: +62 911 352321 Fax: +62 911 352180 Dr. Ristianto Sugiono Head of Planning & Development Board 3rd floor Jl. Raya Pattimura no.1 Ambon, Maluku 917128 Phone: +62 911 352043 Fax: +62 911 355933 Email: bappeda_maluku@yahoo.com

Around 30,000 villages in Indonesia categorized as backward
Antara -- 1 March 2006

Mar 01 23:49 Purworejo, C. Java (ANTARA News) - State Minister for Accelerated Development of Disadvantaged Regions Syaifullah Yusuf said on Wednesday around 30,000 of the country`s 68,800 villages are backward and in need of the attention from all sides.

"The attention may come from central, provincial and district governments as well as from other stakeholders," he said. The backward villages spread in 124 districts in eastern Indonesia, 58 districts in Sumatra, 17 districts in East Java, five districts in Banten, three districts in Central Java and two districts in West Java, he said.

They were classified as backward villages due to poor socio-economic conditions, poor financial capacity, lack of roads, lack of access to government services, and susceptibility to natural disasters, he said.

He said the government needed around Rp7 trillion per year to promote the villages. (*)

Wag the Dog ala Indonesia
Indonesia Matters
April 25th, 2008
in Opinion, by Rima

Rima says the government creates distractions and the media willingly participate, to hide the real problems of Indonesia.

If you are an Indonesian like me, or a foreigner living in Indonesia, or someone who has been following Indonesian current events, you might agree with me when I say that Barry Levinson’s "Wag the Dog" rings a familiar bell. It is somewhat similar to what has been happening lately in Indonesia.

The government knows the people is much more aware of the situation around them nowadays, the people can see right through them, and the people can see their impotence. So what do they (the government) do to take control of the situation? They create decoys as a weapon of mass distraction. They throw bait at the Indonesian media who in turn almost always turn the bait into a giant media circus, distracting the people’s attention from the real, much more urgent problems at hand.

The Indonesian government’s incapability in the eradication of poverty and improvement of the current economy, monetary and socio-political problems have inflicted what seems to be irreparable damage to the country, the keyword here being "seems". It is pre-conditioned that way, and while nothing is impossible or irreparable, this situation is continuously yet implicitly portrayed in the media. A clever tactic by the government to throw the people off course and a cruel move by the money-hungry media that has resulted in the general feeling of despair and hopelessness across the nation.

The following media hulla-balloos are among some of the government’s attempts to make sure the public is forever misinformed of the truth; a sure fire diversion:

- Bill against Pornography and Porno-action (an Indonesian made-up word best translated as pornography acts)

- RUU ITE Indonesia’s newest law, the infamous Cyber Law;, and the latest,

- The blocking of several websites following the release of the Dutch film "FITNA".

Media circuses are certainly not against the law. It isn’t even all that evil. It is neither, only when it happens in a place with a higher number of educated people, or at least higher number of sanity. Sadly, Indonesia is not. The majority of the Indonesian people are uneducated people whose opinions are very easily formed by bombardments of information, much like what the media has been doing lately.

The fact shows the media’s prominent role in shaping the general consensus and I think it plays a big part in the rise of fall of the country’s future as well. It is time for the media industry to up their game and not take the government’s bait and fall into the lure of big sales and advertisement prospectives for the sake of profits only.

They must realize the chances of stimulating the people’s mind and making profit off hard journalism is also feasible. They need to start being serious; employ serious, credible and dignified journalists; focus on serious issues; stop exaggerating and over-blowing silly situations; and they need to put more effort into educating the nation with factual and hard truth. The Indonesian people deserve more than what they got, they need the media’s faith that they are able to digest real news.

While light and entertaining news should not be banned, I think the media should refrain from paying too much attention and merit to the actions of the morally and financially corrupt, those who are passing laws or building business that would only benefit a particular group of people while disadvantaging the majority of the Indonesian people.

Indonesia’s Problems du jour

At the present time, Indonesia has so many problems that, if not treated well, they will be a threat to the country. We have environmental problems, three of which that are quite urgent are:

- deforestation
- pollution
- floods

We have been hit with bad regular floods so often that it is starting to affect the economy, health and the well-being of the people. The fact of the matter is, the flood problem is something Indonesians cannot afford to put off any longer.

We have a shortage of food supply which has led to soaring food prices. This is also the culprit of many malnutrition cases across the country, some of which have even resulted in hunger related deaths. Something unthinkable and unheard of just a decade ago.

We are in a deep hole when it comes to labor and human rights issues. We have never had a transparent government and believing strongly in eastern taboos doesn’t help us get out of the top 10 most corrupt governments list either. Besides that, we also have an increasing growth in poverty and gap between the rich and poor, not to mention a mess of government bureaucracy, infrastructure and working system which it is imperative to improve.

One of our biggest problems yet, as you may already known from the reporting of the various local and international media, is that we have an alarming increase of intolerance among people of different groups and religions which could be the beginning of Indonesia’s journey into medieval times. It may as well be the start of the demise of the so-called world’s third biggest democracy. This is probably the deadliest poison, one that could kill this great nation of diverse people from all walks of life and different cultural, religious and racial backgrounds.

Problems in these areas are so serious and incessant that the government should and must re-evaluate its priorities and start doing something about it. They must stop doing nothing but create situations, laws and regulations that will further distract the general attention of the public from their impotence. They should have some kind of a dialogue with (competent) representatives of the people to brainstorm for solution ideas and to get the people’s aspirations on the table. They must stop hiding behind excuses and apologies of how hard it is to "clean up the mess" left by Suharto Inc. and his legacy of chaos. While it is true that time heals wounds and is important in the progress of change for the better, the decade that has passed by has not really showed significant improvement. On the contrary, many feel that we are now in a state of decline, further backwards than when we started 10 years ago.

Now, will the media wake up and start doing intelligent journalism? Will the government realize they are officials entrusted by the people to guide them to a better place? Will tolerance resurrect and save the people from doom?

As always, we shall wait and see.

The many faces of poverty in Indonesia
fatumbrutum.blogspot.com
August 22, 2007
Roy Voragen, Bandung

Intuition many hold that pluralism in society is a destabilizing factor for democracy. There seems to be only so much diversity a society can handle. Many Indonesians fear that ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious plurality could cause disintegration or even "balkanization".

In recent years violence has occurred in Aceh, Poso, Ambon, Papua, Bali and Jakarta -- this list is indeed long.

Secular Indonesians fear that applying (parts) of sharia in some cities, for example, endangers inclusive citizenship as enshrined in the 1945 Constitution.

Religious people, on the other side, fear that sexed-up trash on TV will morally corrupt the young.

While discussions on Islam, Pancasila and secularism are important for the future of Indonesia's democracy, there is another more pressing problems: structural poverty.

All this talk about public morality seems to obscure the economic fact that 100 million Indonesians have to live on Rp 20,000 (about US$2) a day, and 10 million of them on less than Rp 10,000 per day (these numbers are from the World Bank; see www.worldbank.org/id).

The differences between Muslims and non-Muslims, or religious people and secularists are not as important as the gap between the rich and the poor. It is this gap that could endanger the democratization of this country. Can a democracy flourish when such huge inequality persists?

It is possible with Rp 20,000 a day to get enough food to live. But living is more than eating.

For the poor their situation becomes much like a curse, which stays in the family for at least seven generations, because it is impossible to educate their children. Public education is still very expensive, despite the government's continuous efforts to allocate more money for the sector.

Housing is also complex. As architect John Turner once said: "Housing is a verb." There are many trade-offs to be dealt with. Illegal settlements are seldom free. These settlements are illegal because the occupants lack land tenure -- and thus the legal security that comes with it -- but the occupants have to pay "rent" to get an informal form of safety.

And the farther away from a city center the cheaper housing is, the more money has to be spent on transportation. Sometimes it is easier to sleep in the open air, close to -- possible -- jobs.

Toll roads, high-rise apartment buildings and malls are seen as essential parts of modern life. Urban kampungs have been and are being demolished to make way for these developments. These urban settlements are seen by the rich as the sour spots of a city, and modernization is used as justification for their demolition.

Is the (global) market the only answer? And what is then the role of the Indonesian state? The language of the market sounds fair: you will have a chance to succeed if you use your talents and work hard. In short, meritocracy.

Meritocracy is a society where socio-economic status is derived from one's own efforts and capabilities. In such a society one should not get rich because of one's family name, or skin color, or religion, or place of birth or party membership.

In Indonesia, though, unemployment (masked by underemployment) is so massive that a meritocratic is simply unfeasible. Even with good macro-economic prospects most Indonesians will not enjoy the -- literal -- fruits of these prospects. This leads to a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and it can also lead to conflicts (for instance the returning occurrence of anti-Chinese violence).

Not all poor are, of course, jobless. A job is no guarantee that one can escape poverty. A poor person with talent will have difficulty prospering. It will be very hard to leave the kampung behind. If the ideal of meritocracy is the hard currency it will seem as if poverty is one's own fault: One is just too lazy to make use of one's own capacities. But without networks one cannot advance. It is easy to stigmatize the poor, and to see them as an amorphous mass that can be pushed around.

Poverty is indeed a major threat to democracy, perhaps even more than fundamentalism.

The writer lives in Jakarta and teaches philosophy at Parahyangan University, Bandung. His blog can be accessed at http://fatumbrutum.blogspot.com/.

Looking for justice in Indonesia's disadvantaged regions

The Jakarta Post July 23, 2007

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) recently launched a 2006 report on the findings of an 18-month assessment of five of the country's most marginalized regions and uncovered a prevailing lack of access to justice. The regions are North Maluku, Maluku, Southeast Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi and West Kalimantan. The UNDP's senior advisor for human rights, legal and justice sector reform, Mas Achmad Santosa, discussed the issue with The Jakarta Post's Tony Hotland and Desy Nurhayati.

What are the key findings of the research?

We found there is low community awareness of rights, a preference to resort to informal justice mechanisms such as mediation by village heads or traditional settlements, inadequacies in legal aid and other legal services sponsored by the state and a low level of trust in the police, who are also faced with inadequate operational resources.

What we seek is to empower people in these areas to comprehend their fundamental legal rights, to be able to defend and fight for them and create a system that eases the process of defending and fighting for these rights.

People in disadvantaged areas view going to court as very intimidating and formal, while informal justice mechanisms often result in much fairer settlements for them.

Does a lack of access to justice lead to poverty?

People in these areas have no understanding of what their rights are, let alone how to exercise them. They are open to bullying by the apparatus and institutions. When that happens, how can they fight back? There's a positive correlation between poor access to justice and pauperizing. When they stay poor, access to justice suffers.

Can the government continue to use the excuse that it has financial constraints?

This is a matter of the flow of information. People in urban areas have better access to information than those in rural areas. The government cannot discriminate against those in disadvantaged areas by constantly using the excuse it has financial constraints. I think that's why the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) got us to tag along in projects to provide better access to justice in these areas.

What are the projects Bappenas and the UNDP are working on?

Projects must fortify both camps. They should strengthen the disadvantaged groups as the justice demanders and also the institutions as the justice providers. There must be a balance.

We have a project called the Legal Empowerment and Assistance for the Disadvantaged (LEAD) program in which we try to strengthen institutions at the local level so they can push for empowering the law and promote legal aid groups and other non-governmental organizations. We help them in terms of management and even financing. We also push for the enactment of ordinances that will lead to reforms, such as an ordinance on transparency.

Bappenas has a vision to push for reforms in law enforcement institutions through several methods, including the use of external supervisors such as the Judicial Commission.

It seems there have been efforts to maintain the lack of justice in such areas to sustain power. Do you share this view?

We're in a transition era coming from a time when laws were made to favor those in power. We want to reform but the culture of power is hard to kill. The government is still on a "willing" level to improve access to justice but has yet to successfully transform it into concrete actions. We have yet to see significant budgets for legal aid agencies or for introducing these people to their rights ... to have private poverty, to freedom of speech, to fair treatment. None of it is happening because there have been way too many distractions.

But I don't believe there's a systematic effort to keep things the way they are. I've had a chance to talk with the President and other decision makers in the law enforcers' camp, and I didn't get the impression that the lack of access was intentional. But I do believe there's a problem in the management of furthering the reform agenda ... more a (lack of) managerial capacity.

There's of course a great chance that some people may want to keep these areas lacking in access to justice, from which they can benefit. But I don't think they're the ones in key positions.

You mentioned there have been distractions in the fight to bring justice to marginalized regions. What kind distractions?

The President was at one point high-spirited to reform the bureaucracy, but then came consecutive natural disasters and political disturbances. To date, there are other things the government has put ahead of (providing) access to justice, such as economic issues.

The provision of access to justice relies on the ability of the institutions to reform and reorganize themselves. Once they've restructured, society will automatically feel and see the changes through new services. So, the first and most essential factor is the reform of institutions.

Giving even access to justice in all areas is in line with the government's own program to develop disadvantaged regions.

Indonesia a far-fetched idea for victims of development injustice
The Jakarta Post
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Tony Hotland

Decades of development of injustices and resurging sense of ethnicity may serve as indications that Indonesian unity as a nation was still far-fetched or even losing its ground, a group of social observers said Friday.

They were having a discussion after a book launch by Riwanto Tirtosudarmo, an Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) researcher, titled Looking for Indonesia: The Demography of Politics post-Soeharto.

The observers cited the way former president Soeharto forged his idea of nationalism by establishing a "host culture" in a very centralized approach of development, leaving others outside Java with an outsider feeling.

"A gap in development and the powerful prevalence of a host culture made everyone outside Java feel they weren't Indonesians. They came to Java and learned the local culture just to get that supposed feeling of being Indonesian," anthropologist Moeslim Abdurrahman said.

He said Soeharto's authoritarian regime and his way of making Javanese culture as the face of Indonesia had left non-Javanese no imaginations of what Indonesia could be.

University of Indonesia sociologist Francisca "Ery" Seda said the country was steered by a sole authority during the regime and the state was too dominant in defining Indonesia -- a nation of thousands of islands and hundreds of ethnics and languages.

"Did the Acehnese know who (woman hero) Kartini was?" she said.

"Did the Papuans know what Majapahit was?

"They got this only in what they saw as Indonesian school."

Otto Syamsuddin from rights group Imparsial said Indonesia belonged only to those "within the asphalted yards", referring to those living in major cities that enjoyed the most of decades of development.

"We've begun deserting our unity and going for our diversity," he said.

"It's time we start building (the nation) based on our unity again."

LIPI political analyst Hermawan Sulistyo said such a view was evident in the fact that many new regions were created based on the ethnic identity.

"It's deplorable that while we're still trying to unify this nation after the fall of Soeharto, we're seeing new regions created simply based on ethnicity," he said.

The current repercussions of such ethnic consciousness, they said, included the resurging calls for natives as the leader to-be in local election campaigns.

"The issue of being a region's native has become a real issue in politics," Moeslim said.

"When one can't stand under the house of nationalism, they go back to their ethnic house."

Otto cited an example when transmigration to other regions used to be smooth and conflict-free, but now the local people immediately were possessed by fear newcomers would take over the economy and politics resources there.

An exit from the situation was an issue of even and just development across the country, they said.

"The approach to all conflicts isn't cultural, but economic fairness.

"Culture is given in Indonesia, and any conflicts now is basically an issue of economic and social injustices," Ery said.

Moeslim added "only when the government can supply and meet the basic needs of the citizens will the feeling of belonging to Indonesia flourish".

Corruption the biggest threat to Indonesian development
The Jakarta Post -- 13 April 2006
Paul Wolfowitz, Jakarta

What the Asian crisis showed -- nowhere more clearly than in Indonesia -- is that corruption is often is at the very root of why governments don't work.

Today, one of the biggest threats to development in many countries -- including this one -- is corruption. It weakens the systems, it distorts the market, and it therefore encourages non-productive skills.

In the end, governments and citizens will pay a price, in lower incomes, lower investment, and more volatile economic swings.

This is a lesson that Indonesia learned the hard way. After the progress of the last 20 years, corruption contributed significantly to the economic collapse of the late 1990s. It now looms as a major obstacle to achieving the development successes this country is capable of -- and which the Indonesian people deserve.

Corruption not only undermines the ability of governments to function properly, it also stifles private sector growth.

We hear it from investors -- both domestic and foreign -- who worry that where corruption is rampant, contracts are unenforceable, competition is skewed and the cost of doing business is stifling. When investors see that, they take their money elsewhere.

To give an idea: In Indonesia, 56 percent of surveyed firms say they are willing to pay more taxes -- in fact half are willing to pay up to 5 percent of their revenues -- if corruption could be eliminated.

Corruption thrives in countries where private investors face cumbersome procedures and excessive regulations. When extra licenses are needed to start a business, when extra signatures are required to import goods, it creates opportunities for abuse of authority and for corruption.

Our estimates show that the time to start a business has already fallen from 151 days to below 80 days, and we are hopeful that the government will reach its target. That would be a wonderful success story.

Perhaps the most important challenge lies in the enforcement of contracts. On this front, Indonesia ranks amongst the lowest in the world -- 145 out of 155. In fact, investors' lack of trust in the legal system is one of the problems that have brought investment levels down to half of those in your fast-growing neighbors.

Indonesia has already begun to confront some of these difficult challenges. President Yudhoyono has launched a tough anti-corruption drive that is holding public officials accountable across all levels of government.

New institutions like the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Anti-Corruption Court, the Judicial Commission and Timtastipikor are up and running and producing results. And institutions like the Supreme Audit Commission and the Attorney General's Office are showing newfound strength.

Even more important are the measures taken to reduce opportunities and incentives for corruption, led by an impressive economic team.

We know that when governments don't work, the development assistance we provide to governments doesn't work either. It means that children are denied the education they need. Mothers are denied the health care they deserve and countries are denied the institutions needed to deliver real results.

Fighting corruption is a long-term commitment. We cannot expect results overnight.

What we can expect is steady progress towards building transparent and accountable institutions. That is why fighting corruption requires a long-term strategy that systematically and progressively attacks the problem. And that is why any strategy for solving a problem requires the commitment and participation of governments, citizens and the private sector.

There's been a lot of attention recently to a number of actions we've taken to suspend lending in existing projects where corruption concerns have emerged.

The World Bank Group's country strategy for Indonesia is one that particularly emphasizes governance. In partnership with the Indonesian government, we will commit $900 million per year to strengthening governance, with the goal of improving service delivery in education, health and other essential services and enhancing the investment climate.

In countries like Indonesia where the government is committed to fighting corruption, our resources anbd expertise can make a difference.

Enforcement alone will not cure corruption. How much we do, and how much progress we make, depends on the desire of both governments and civil society to create the right setting for sound, strong, sustainable development.

The greatest changes come when the ideas people carry in their heads change. In many countries, people are not as tolerant of corruption as they were in the past.

The good news is that in Indonesia, the social and economic achievements of the last forty years have created a demand for government that works. The people of Indonesia recognize that with transparent and accountable governance, they stand a better chance of reducing corruption...of improving their quality of life...and securing a better future for their children.

The article is condensed from an address made by the World Bank President at a discussion on democracy, governance and development held Tuesday night in conjunction with Tempo media group's 35th anniversary.

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