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	The price of democracy by Sian Powell / John Aglionby The Australian / The Guardian / Earth Institute News Indonesia   Jakarta. October 17, 2005   "SBY stands firm after turbulent year", by Sian Powell. (The Australian)   On a meet-the-people excursion in Cilincing, north Jakarta, on Friday, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the assembled villagers to help those who were less fortunate. "Our country still faces trials and challenges," he said. "So we must remain patient and have faith in God to face those challenges."   With this mix of humility and honesty, Dr Yudhoyono has weathered his first year in office remarkably well, substantially retaining the people"s confidence and largely maintaining peace in one of the world"s most geographically and ethnically fractured nations.   He dealt capably with one of history"s worst natural disasters, the December tsunami; he has helped to broker a peace for a long-festering insurrection in Aceh; and he has convinced the populace not to revolt over drastic but essential fuel price hikes. Marking his first anniversary in office this Thursday, Dr Yudhoyono now has a foundation of trust and confidence to build on across the sprawling archipelago.   Yet some of his critics maintain he has fudged a desperately needed crackdown on corruption and, more ominously, has decided to use the Bali bombings earlier this month to let the military edge back into domestic security, and to toughen anti-terror laws to the point of undermining hard-won civil liberties.   Salim Said, a military expert and a professor at Muhammadiah University in Malang, says the military"s return to domestic affairs was controversial, and the public is now concerned that a return to the dark days of former leader Suharto"s military dictatorship is in the offing - Indonesia endured more than three decades of military rule.   It"s unlikely, though, that there will be anything more than concerned muttering in reaction to the military"s new role. The President has handled more difficult problems in recent weeks. Earlier this month, he slashed fuel subsidies for the second time this year, reneging on a pledge, and pushing up prices of fuel and ordinary commodities in a nation where half the people live on less than $2.50 a day. It prompted little more than a few small demonstrations and desultory rock-throwing and tyre-burning - nothing compared with the protests of the past.   Political scientist Daniel Sparingga from Airlangga University says the President continues to enjoy widespread support from the public, despite a terrible year of adversities. "I think many of his plans could not be realised as quickly as he had hoped, because of so many things like the tsunami, the falling rupiah, the oil price rises," he said. "And people see his cabinet is not as good as people had hoped - there is nothing special. Yet he still has public support because they see he is honest and not corrupt, and because there is no alternative leadership."   The war on corruption, says Dr Sparingga, has been a touchstone for Indonesians, and they see that efforts have been made to address the entrenched graft that dogs the nation. The former governor of Aceh province, Abdullah Puteh, has been prosecuted, convicted and jailed for corruption, and it is likely he will be stripped of his assets. The minister of religion under former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, Said Agil Hussein Al Munawwar, has been hauled before the courts for a scandal concerning funds for the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. The General Elections Commission has been torn apart by corruption investigators, and the Supreme Court chief justice Bagir Manan and former president Suharto"s half-brother Probosutedjo are being investigated over corruption allegations.   "People can see he is serious in combating corruption, now that the corruption of the higher-ups has been revealed," Dr Sparingga says.   Even so, other analysts say the work is moving too slowly, and there are any number of Indonesian leaders who still enjoy immunity from prosecution - including Suharto, who lives in leafy splendour in central Jakarta.   Indonesia Corruption Watch chief Teten Masduki believes the President has shown his dedication to ridding the country of corruption, yet the results are meagre. "When he was inaugurated, there were three main issues he wanted to deal with - they were economics, corruption and security," he says. "There has been no extraordinary achievement in these fields, but there has been moderate progress."   A survey conducted late last month by the Indonesian Survey Institute found concerns about the economy had dragged Dr Yudhoyono"s approval rating down to 63per cent. While this is still a rating most Western politicians can only dream about, it is a far cry from the heady days after he was elected last year, when a similar poll found he had a massive approval rating of 80per cent.   Dr Sparingga says the public expected Dr Yudhoyono to be courageous in tackling the nation"s entrenched problems. "He was expected to lead with an iron fist in law enforcement, because for the public, the most important thing is combating corruption and for the entrepreneurs it is a feeling of safety, with no more need for bribes."   Bali. October 4, 2005   "The price of democracy", by John Aglionby. (The Guardian)   Viewed through a prism of headlines, Indonesia can easily appear to be an unstable nation being ripped asunder by radical Islamists. Four big terrorist attacks by locally recruited militants in three years - the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing, the 2003 bomb at the Jakarta Marriott hotel, the 2004 bomb at the Australian embassy in Jakarta and Saturday"s second Bali bombing - suggest not only incompetent security forces but something profoundly wrong with society.   A further problem is the authorities refusal to rein in orthodox Islamist groups that have bullied more than two dozen churches into closure over the past two years and repeatedly attacked the Indian-based Ahmadiyah sect"s premises on the grounds of alleged deviancy, as well as a decision by the national ulemas council to ban pluralism and liberal teachings.   The most populous Muslim nation undoubtedly has its problems. Outposts of radicalism have taken root in much of the sprawling archipelago over the past seven years and militants continue to stoke communal conflict in the eastern islands of Sulawesi and the Moluccas.   Jemaah Islamiyah, the terror network linked to al-Qaida that wants to turn most of south-east Asia into a caliphate, has put down deep roots in the country and some leading members, such as Azahari Husin - the Malaysian being blamed for orchestrating the last three of the four attacks - have been forming their own organisations with even more radical agendas. Azahari"s is called Thoifah Muqatilah (combat unit) and it is thought to want to escalate the struggle. Like the organisers of the London attacks, he uses fresh recruits unknown to the authorities who are willing to make martyrs of themselves.   Azahari and his cohorts are tapping into the resources of other radical groups, such as Kompak, based in Sulawesi; the Indonesian Mujahideen Movement, whose leader is Abu Bakar Ba"asyir, the alleged former head of Jemaah Islamiyah; and Darul Islam, a 55-year-old network that spawned most of the newer offshoots, including Jemaah Islamiyah.   Afraid of being seen as western pawns by the country"s Muslim majority, the last four presidents have declined to crack down as hard as they could have on these radical groups, thereby allowing them to expand. The government and its people are now paying the price, having to quell extensive periods of unrest and prevent terrorist attacks with security and intelligence forces which, until very recently, were far from first-rate.   Having said all this, the radicalism must be placed in context. Despite its impact, the movement"s numbers are tiny and not growing fast. And despite the perceived global assault on Islam - whether in Iraq, Palestine or elsewhere - the vast majority of Indonesia"s 190 million Muslims remain moderate. Islam arrived in Indonesia through trade rather than conquest, so not only does it lack some of the characteristics prevalent elsewhere but it is also diluted by cultural traditions that predate its arrival. This is becoming manifest in domestic politics: Islamist parties are faring well but only because they espouse clean, well-run government and shy away from demanding an Islamic state.   And history cannot be ignored. Radical Islam was born during the colonial era but was violently repressed during the 32-year dictatorship of General Suharto, supported by the west. When his regime collapsed in 1998, it was as if the lid had been blown off a pressure cooker. Radicalism thrived on the oxygen it had been starved of.   The other major development in Indonesia since 1998 is that it has transformed itself into a flourishing democracy. Indonesians directly elected their president for the first time this year and a return to authoritarianism seems unlikely. A new respect for law and order means that Indonesia is not willing to copy Malaysia and Singapore - or the United States - by detaining alleged militants and terrorists indefinitely without charge.   The Bali bombings are undoubtedly a partial consequence of this openness and no one doubts there will be more attacks. While the great majority of the nation condemns them, there seems to be an acceptance that giving everyone a voice is part of the price of becoming a democracy. Indonesia has shown the world the world how a predominantly Islamic country can embrace democracy. Alas, it is also showing the world that the transition can be costly.   Posted 09/22/05   "Indonesia President addresses World Leaders Forum, cites Peace as crucial to achieving MDGs. (Earth Institute News)   Indonesia president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took the stage at Columbia University"s World Leaders Forum and challenged the world to take more decisive action in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). At the same time, he held up Indonesia as both a bleak reminder of the need to make immediate progress as well as a model for how the far-reaching development goals could be met by combining peace with development.   During the speech, he recited some now-familiar statistics that become more stark at every reading: 1.1 billion people around the world live in extreme poverty; 1.3 billion people lack access to clean water and three billion to sanitation; and an estimated eight million die every year as a result of their poverty.   "It is said that statistics do not bleed, but when they are as horrible as these, you have to pause and think," said President Yudhoyono. "Apart from that, when you see those video clips on TV of skeletal babies in the throes of helpless hunger, your humanity is challenged. You cannot avert your eyes. Attention must be paid. Action must be taken."   President Yudhoyono made his remarks as part of the third World Leaders Forum, an annual event at Columbia that brings international leaders to campus during the UN General Assembly to examine global challenges and explore cultural perspectives from rising global health needs to the influence of American films abroad. Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs invited Yudhoyono this year specifically to address the need to achieve the MDGs and meet the world"s shared commitments to fight extreme hunger, poverty and disease by 2015.   "These goals intersect with all the other goals we have whether it"s for global peace, for the war on terror, for other forms of instability," said Sachs in his introduction of President Yudhoyono.  "If there is no development, there cannot be security for anyone."   In Indonesia, lingering resentment over colonial rule and government corruption in province of Aceh helped stoke nearly three decades of unrest and open rebellion and spawned a cycle of increasing violence and poverty. Repeated attempts to end the violence between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement failed. Then, in December 2004, a magnitude 9.3 earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated northern Sumatra, killing an estimated 130,000 people in Aceh and leaving more than half a million homeless.   Afterward, President Yudhoyono said, people on both sides of the conflict recognized that reconstruction and rehabilitation of the region could only be carried out successfully in an atmosphere of peace and openness.   As a result, Indonesia is enacting new structural and economic reforms that put special emphasis on fighting corruption, improving rural infrastructure and reducing poverty, including establishing a $1.9 billion social safety net. In addition, the government is seeking ways of giving the people of Aceh greater participation in and ownership over reconstruction, an effort that is bringing peace to a shattered region for the first time in more than a generation.   "We made peace [in Aceh] in record time, and that peace is holding." said President Yudhoyono. "The challenge now is to make that peace endure so that it will become the environment of a battle in which former adversaries will be fighting on the same side — the battle against poverty."   (The Earth Institute at Columbia University is the world"s leading academic center for the integrated study of Earth, its environment and society. The Earth Institute builds upon excellence in the core disciplines — earth sciences, biological sciences, engineering sciences, social sciences and health sciences — and stresses cross-disciplinary approaches to complex problems. Through research, training and global partnerships, it mobilizes science and technology to advance sustainable development, while placing special emphasis on the needs of the world"s poor).   Click on the link below to read more Earth Institute news stories. Visit the related web page
	Nelson Mandela lauds African Icons as Role Models by Reuters Kenya   Nairobi, October 3, 2005   Former South African President Nelson Mandela urged the leaders of Africa on Sunday to draw lessons from those who liberated the continent from colonialism as they chart paths to lift their countries from poverty and strife.   Mandela, who led South Africa out of the apartheid era, said African leaders who guided their countries to independence offered many lessons to their successors.   Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and other pioneers demonstrated that "we could challenge colonialism. We are following in their path," he said on arrival in Nairobi, where he was greeted by traditional songs, drumbeats and dances.   "Such leaders have not perished. They are coming up in droves and inspire an entire continent," said Mandela, 87, who appeared frail and was often supported by an aide.   Mandela retired from public life last year. He is visiting Kenya with his wife, Graca Machel, who is in the country to lead meetings on a final report on Kenya in a closely watched African peer review process.   Mandela said Africans should concentrate on the positive achievements their leaders have made and not their failings, as the continent works to solve its own problems.   Kenya is among the first four countries to take part in a peer review plan being closely watched by Africans and international donors and sponsored by the New Partnership for Africa's Development.   The partnership launched the voluntary reviews by African peer countries to encourage more aid and investment into the world's poorest continent by improving governance. Evaluators assess governments' records in democracy, human rights, peace and security, economic policy and business environment.
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