Thousands of Cipinang inmates mark their ballots

Voting began at 8 a.m. under supervision of 120 prison wardens.

We have got nothing much going here, so we are definitely participating this kind of event.

Inmates said they have been following issues surrounding the election through newspapers and television stations.

More than 176 million Indonesians are eligible to vote today to decide whether incumbent president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or former-president Megawati Soekarnoputri get their second term or incumbent Vice President Jusuf Kalla gets the top seat.

Thousands of Cipinang inmates mark their ballots

Voting began at 8 a.m. under supervision of 120 prison wardens.

We have got nothing much going here, so we are definitely participating this kind of event.

Inmates said they have been following issues surrounding the election through newspapers and television stations.

More than 176 million Indonesians are eligible to vote today to decide whether incumbent president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or former-president Megawati Soekarnoputri get their second term or incumbent Vice President Jusuf Kalla gets the top seat.

Indonesia rejects loans with commitment fee

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has said Indonesia will not take overseas loans requiring Indonesia to pay commitment fees.

"Since 2004, Bappenas (National Development Planning Board) has formulated readiness criteria for project loans to be taken by Indonesia," Sri Mulyani Indrawati, said here on Monday, when speaking at a working meeting with the House of Representatives (DPR)`s Commission XI to discuss the country`s loan position and fiscal sustainability.

Among those attending the meeting were the House`s Commission XI chairman, A. Hafiz Zawawi, Development Planning State Minister/Head of Bappenas Paskah Suzetta, and BI Deputy Governor Hartadi A. Sarwono.

"Bappenas has applied project preparedness criteria. If the projects are not ready, we don`t take the loans and won`t go to the State Budget, so that there is no more commitment fee," the finance minister said.

According to her, the government (Bappenas and the finance ministry) has conducted disciplinary measure in the local management, including when meeting creditors.

"We will not sign a loan agreement unless there is a project preparation for its implementation, so there will be no longer commitment fee charge," she said.

The finance minister regretted misunderstandings that as if the past practices in loan management was still going on until now.

"We affirm that the loan management policy has completely changed since the reform era, with the existence of the laws on state financial sector," the minister said.

Minister Sri Mulyani said that thanks to the current loan management system, the government could no longer take overseas loans like they used to in the past where there had been no transparency and it had been done outside the State Budget (APBN).

Commenting on a criticism from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) that there was quite long commitment free for project loans, the minister said it had happened in the past.

"It happened in the past when the loan policy was so complicated administratively which disadvantaged Indonesia," she said.

Elite Indonesia troops tortured Papuans - group

Members of Indonesia's elite military special forces, Kopassus, have acted with legal impunity in Papua to detain, torture and beat up ordinary citizens, Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Thursday.

The New York-based rights watchdog urged the Indonesian government to investigate alleged abuses, and to discipline or prosecute offenders and their commanding officers.

It also called on countries such as the United States, Australia and Britain to cut training ties with Kopassus until the matter had been investigated.

"The long history of political tensions and abuses by the Indonesian security forces in Papua have created a climate of fear in the province," it said, adding "violence thrives when a culture of impunity persists in the heart of what is supposed to be one of Indonesia's best trained fighting units."

Resource-rich Papua on the western half of New Guinea island is one of Indonesia's most politically sensitive regions.

Indonesia has maintained a heavy military presence in Papua in an attempt to crush a decades-long secessionist movement, and there have been frequent reports of abuses by security forces over the years.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said he could not respond to the allegations until he had read the report.

Papua military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Soesilo also said that he was not aware of the allegations.

PLAIN-CLOTHED TROOPS

Kopassus, which has been accused of rights abuses in secessionist hot spots such as Aceh, Papua and East Timor in the past, is currently headed by Major-General Pramono Edhie Wibowo, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's brother-in-law.

It was previously headed by Prabowo Subianto, a former general who is now former President Megawati Sukarnoputri's running mate in the July 8 presidential election.

The rights group alleged that plain-clothed Kopassus troops picked Papuans up off the street or from their homes in Merauke, a city in the easternmost part of Papua, even though they were not involved in the secessionist movement.

The report quoted testimony from several Papuans who said they had been beaten and forced to eat very hot raw chillies when their mouths were bleeding, causing severe pain.

Australia stopped conducting joint training exercises with Kopassus after accusations of abuses in East Timor in 1999, but

has since resumed them, citing a desire to cooperate in counter-terrorism.

According to Human Rights Watch, Britain plans a training session with Kopassus this year.

To read the HRW report, click here: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/06/25/what-did-i-do-wrong

Indonesian court frees Facebook mum

An Indonesian mother-of-two was cleared of defamation charges after emails she wrote about poor treatment at a local hospital appeared on social networking website Facebook.

In a case that provoked outrage across the mainly Muslim nation, Prita Mulyasari, 32, was facing six years' jail for defamation under the criminal code and had already spent three weeks in a police cell.

Her alleged crime was to complain in an email to friends about her treatment for dengue fever at Omni International Hospital outside Jakarta.

The hospital filed criminal charges after the emails were widely circulated on Facebook.

The courtroom erupted in applause and cheers when Judge Karel Tuffu threw out the case.

"We accept the objections filed by the defendant's lawyers and rule that the indictment is legally void," he told the court in announcing the ruling.

Mulyasari had committed no crime by complaining about public health services, he added.

Wearing a blue Muslim headscarf, Mulyasari thanked the judges and broke down in tears of joy as she left the court with her husband.

"All this has been arranged by God.... I'm grateful that there is still justice," she said.

Arrested on May 13, Mulyasari has already been fined 30,000 dollars under the civil code for defaming the hospital, which has refused to back off its pursuit of the bank worker.

She spent three weeks in custody without charge until public outrage at her detention forced authorities to release her on June 4 and bring her before the courts to face the harsher charges under the criminal code.

More than 100,000 people signed a Facebook support group demanding her immediate release, while President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono -- in the midst of an election campaign -- called on the courts to be lenient.

TNI soldiers involved in fatal shooting of Papuan teenager

Thirteen-year-old Isak Pesakot was shot and killed by Indonesian Military (TNI) soldiers patrolling in the Keerom regency, Papua, on Monday.

Lt. Col. Susilo, spokesperson of the Papua Military Command, confirmed the incident on Tuesday.

“TNI soldiers at Bewan military post in Keerom were responsible for the shooting. The incident is now under investigation,” he said as quoted by Antara state news agency.

Servo Tuamis, a local tribal chief, said Isak was walking home from a visit to a relative in Skoscahu, Papua New Guinea (PNG), with his brothers when they met a patrol team of eight soldiers and dogs. The three children ran away after being chased by the dogs and two of them climbed a tree to escape while Isak stayed on the ground.

“The children in the tree heard two shots and shouted that they were Indonesians and to stop firing,” he said.

Keerom is a border area between Indonesia and PNG and Servo said local citizens frequently crossed the border to visit their relatives.

Last week an officer of the Jayapura Police was detained by PNG authorities for allegedly illegally crossing the border at Wutung Beach in Keerom.

What's so Indonesian about Indonesia anyway?

According to the judges, our newly-crowned Miss Indonesia, Karenina Sunny Halim, won her title largely because she amazed them with her fl uent English - mighty handy, of course, for representing Indonesia at international forums.

Unfortunately, there's just one big catch when she's not representing Indonesia at international forums: She doesn't speak Indonesian, nor does she know much about Indonesian culture.

She's half-American, uses English on a daily basis, and when she does give Indonesian a go, she does so haltingly and with an American accent.

This is all rather strange - another entry for my bulging "Only in Indonesia" fi le. I mean, can you imagine a Miss America who doesn't speak English, a Miss Brazil who doesn't speak Portuguese or a Miss Japan who doesn't speak Japanese?

Yes, Karenina's "Lost in Translation" victory is exactly the sort of thing guaranteed to send Presidential candidate Megawati and her running mate, Prabowo Subianto, into meltdown.

Their Tweedledum-Tweedledee campaign now seems to be pinning its slender hopes of victory on a protect-your-traditional-culture drive. Mega says "the fl ow of globalization into Indonesia is so fast . if we don't protect our culture, one day we'll fall on our faces".

Prabowo cites the number of foreign malls in Indonesia, saying that the Japanese prefer Japanese malls, and that Walmart closed there after fi ve years.

That's proof of Japanese nationalism, he said, and Indonesians should do likewise. (Of course! haven't we always striven to emulate our northern brother in the Asian co-prosperity sphere?)

Okay, so let's see if their fears are founded. What is Indonesian culture and is it being invaded by aliens?

Let's start with food, something we all love. Here's a short list of Indonesia's most famous traditional dishes: Gado-gado (mixed boiled veggies in peanut sauce), satay (chicken, beef or lamb skewers in peanut sauce or soya-sauce with chili), rendang (tasty morsels of meat simmered for hours in coconut milk, spices and lots of chili), belado (sliced fried meat, shrimp or potatoes in a chili and tomato sauce), and lots and lots of tofu and tempe dishes. Yummy! Am I making your mouth water?

But stop! Are these dishes really "Indonesian"? Chili peppers are from the Americas; tomatoes are from South America; potatoes originated from the Andes; and peanuts are native to South America, Mexico and Central America.

Like it or not, without Christopher Columbus, that alien Western globalizer, our national cuisine wouldn't exist!

So what is left? Surely coconut milk, the basic ingredient of so many Indonesian dishes, is native? Guess again: Its origins are controversial, and some claim coconuts come from South Asia, but fossil records show that they're from New Zealand. And soybeans?

They are used to make the tempe and tofu so beloved of Indonesians that when the price of soybeans skyrocketed in 1997-1998 during the monetary crisis, and again as recently as 2008, Indonesians were screaming not for blood, but for beans. Well, sorry, soybeans are still primarily imported.

Yep, most of our "traditional" recipes are just a complex blend of cultural infl uences: Chinese, Indian, Arab, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and Anglo.

Even our world-famous Indonesian Rijsttafel (rice table), a banquet of many dishes, was a Dutch colonial creation. Do you think that the average "inlander" (native) would have had the time and money to enjoy such a luxury?

They say you are what you eat, but what about what comes out of our mouths? Bahasa Indonesia is also a product of imports, including Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Tamil, Dutch, Portuguese and English.

In fact, there are so many loanwords from other languages (look up Wikipedia's entry on Loan words in Indonesian) that a book containing 20,000 of them, Russell Jones' Loan Words in Indonesian, was recently published.

What about what we believe? Hinduism and Buddhism, the two oldest religions in Indonesia, were brought in by Indian traders. Islam is from the Middle East, brought here by a host of ethnicities, including Gujarati traders and Chinese merchants.

The Portuguese brought Catholicism with them, and the Dutch Protestantism, while Confucianism came with Chinese merchants and immigrants. So, is there any native Indonesian belief system? Yes, animism, which everyone - from Muslims to Christians - has tried to marginalize.

How about clothing? Well, it's mainly Western, while traditional costumes have long been infl uenced by Chinese, Indian and (especially nowadays!) Arab cultures. Even the peci, the black cap that Sukarno and hundreds of others after him wear as a symbol of nationalism, is a take on the Turkish fez.

I could go on about theatre, dance, music, technology - and don't even get me started about our economic and political system - but it seems pretty clear that Indonesian cultures (yes, it's plural!) are a long-simmering stew of foreign infl uences.

And this is because Indonesia has always been a globalized society at a crossroads of nations, straddling as it does the sea lanes between India and China.

Our cities have thus always been entrepots, so it's hardly surprising that our communities are still syncretic and eclectic - a giant archipelagic bourse for cultures, religions and ideas.

Globalization is neither new nor scary, and certainly not a product of modernity. History, fi lled with conquests, commerce and (religious) conversions, has for centuries produced hugely successful globalized entrepots like Rome, Alexandria, Venice, Ottoman Istanbul ... and Jakarta.

Gado-gado without peanuts, sambal without chili, tempe without soybeans? Unimaginable right? In fact, without globalization and foreign infl uences, Indonesia itself is unimaginable.

We wouldn't have any of the offi cially-recognized religions, we wouldn't be speaking Bahasa Indonesia, and we'd have no coffee (from Ethiopia) or tea (from China) to chat over (our national pastime), and no stinky kreteks to smoke while doing so (tobacco is from America).

Even Balinese dancing girls would be unable to dance the (Indian) Ramayana or Mahabharata tales. And they couldn't even wear frangipani in their hair, either because that quintessentially tropical fl ower is - you guessed it! - another Latin America import.

So maybe Karenina is just another expression of our gloriously globalized and diverse community, and not so "un-Indonesian" after all? As for Mega-Pro, would someone be so kind as to give them a free lesson in globalization and the cultural history of our not-so traditional country?