[Kabar-Irian] News: August 10-14 2007

[Admin-Editors Kabar-Irian]

KABAR IRIAN NEWS

Aug 10-14

TOPICS

* Indonesian Proposal: Pay Us
* Sydney conference on Indonesia’s Papua told...
* Sydney conference on Papua in dissent over autonomy support
*  Australian government called to raise the issue of Papuan independence
* Papua:A foreign policy shame for Australia
* Papua seeks funds for fighting global warming through forest conservation
* Cool under pressure
* A look at some earthquakes in Indonesia since 2000
* Staging mutations
* Yudhoyono to attend Youth Day event in Boven Digoel
* Tangguh LNG could reduce fishing area in Bintuni: NGO
* Get to know the neighbours
* Dispatches From the Edge: Indonesia and the U.S. — A Shameful Record
* Indonesia Proposes Lower Limit on Ore Output at Freeport Mine
* Indonesia Auditor Seeks New Royalty Base For Freeport -Report

---

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118668871988593367.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

RAIN FOREST RESCUE
Indonesian Proposal: Pay Us
Not to Chop Down Our Trees
Papua Governor Touts
Carbon-Credit Fund;
Developers Put on Hold
By TOM WRIGHT
August 10, 2007; Page A1

PAPUA, Indonesia -- Barnabas Suebu, the governor of this remote and wild
province, recalls flying over

parts of Indonesia a decade ago and being appalled by what he saw below. A
major island in the

archipelago, once home to massive virgin rain forests, had been stripped
bare for development and

plantations.

"I felt so sad," Mr. Suebu said. "This kind of damage must be avoided in
Papua."
PAPUA'S PLEA

•  What's New: Papua is hoping global investors will pay the province not
to cut and burn down its pristine

rain forests.
•  Burning Issue: Western nations are increasingly worried that fires set
to clear forests for agricultural

purposes are a major cause of global warming.
•  The Outlook: Without funding, Papua may need to hand over huge tracts
of land to Chinese and

Malaysian plantation companies.

Until recently, similar destruction in Papua seemed inevitable. The
Indonesian government has long

wanted to hack through its rain forest to make way for agricultural
development. In the past year, Chinese

and Indonesian companies have unveiled plans to spend billions of dollars
on huge palm-oil plantations,

hoping to feed demand for biodiesel. Papua appeared on the verge of its
first-ever investment rush.

In an interview in Papua's capital, Jayapura, Mr. Suebu, 61 years old,
acknowledged that his

impoverished province needs the economic boost development might bring.
But rather than allow Papua

to follow the same course as many other Indonesian islands, Mr. Suebu is
trying to chart a new direction.

In effect, he wants Papua to be paid not to cut down its rain forest.

His proposal: Have Papua become an active player in the world's emerging
carbon markets -- a series of

exchanges that let investors and companies buy and sell the right to
pollute. By setting aside a portion of

the earmarked land for conservation, he believes Papua could attract
companies who wish to gain carbon

"credits." These valuable commodities, traded on various types of
exchanges, allow investors to offset

their carbon-dioxide emissions elsewhere. Credits on the European Union's
trading system are currently

worth about $27 per ton of carbon dioxide.

The plan for Papua came to the governor's attention by way of Dorjee Sun,
a 30-year-old Australian who

became a millionaire developing Internet software. Under Mr. Sun's model
for Papua, European and U.S.

investors would put money into an offshore carbon fund. The money would
then flow to local governments

if they keep their promises not to cut forest land. In return, investors
stand to receive credits based on

how much carbon dioxide would have been emitted if the forests were
burned. Compliance would be

monitored via satellite technology.
The governor of Papua, Indonesia, plans to preserve the island's rain
forest by selling carbon credits. But

the nation's government has yet to sign off.

If successful, the Papua approach could help influence anti-global warming
efforts in Indonesia and

elsewhere.

"We need to show Papua that there is an alternative to plantations," said
Mr. Sun on a recent visit to the

island. "This is the last frontier."

Rain forests play a key role in maintaining the world's environmental
balance. Trees and plants soak up

carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. Ancient forests store more than new
plantations. Protecting them

also means reducing one of the chief causes of harmful carbon-dioxide
emissions: fires set to clear the

forests for other agricultural purposes.

According to the World Bank, roughly 22 million acres of rain forests are
lost globally each year when

they are cleared by fire for alternate use. These fires account for about
20% of the world's carbon-

dioxide emissions -- more than the total from all vehicles, airplanes and
ships. Such fires make Indonesia

the third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide after the U.S. and China --
even though it has the world's 22nd-

largest economy.

Curbing forest destruction is gaining more attention as a strategy to
combat global warming. The Kyoto

protocol, the global treaty intended to cap emissions, allows companies to
earn the right to pollute by

funding emission-reducing projects in developing nations. Credits to
pollute are traded around the world.

Major buyers include heavy-emitting companies in Europe and Japan, which
are subject to Kyoto-related

emission caps.

Currently, the treaty allows companies to generate credits by planting new
trees. But it doesn't cover

efforts to preserve existing trees -- the sort of plan now being pursued
in Papua. Even so, most of the

Kyoto-sanctioned projects have focused on cutting pollution from industry;
only one has involved planting

trees.

But now, as diplomats begin debating a new international agreement to
succeed the Kyoto Protocol when

it expires in 2012, there's increasing talk of changing the rules to allow
tree-preservation -- also dubbed

"avoided deforestation" -- to produce emission credits that can be bought
and sold.

Messrs. Sun and Suebu concede that their project is unlikely to interest
companies that must meet official

emissions-reduction targets under the current Kyoto treaty. But they
believe change is afoot.

In December, the United Nations' Climate Change Conference will meet on
the Indonesian island of Bali

to discuss whether to include "avoided deforestation" projects in the
successor treaty to Kyoto. At the

meeting, the World Bank will detail its plan to spend $250 million over
the next year in a pilot program to

reward nations that protect their forests.

Even if Kyoto standards remain ironclad, Messrs. Sun and Suebu see potential.
[Papua map]

They suspect that the Papua fund will also appeal to investors who want to
get in on the growing number

of unregulated, ad-hoc markets dedicated to the voluntary trade of carbon
credits. These markets,

including the Chicago Climate Exchange, sell different types of credits to
companies that want to offset

their carbon emissions -- sometimes going so far as to be "carbon neutral"
-- for public-relations

reasons. Some of these companies are in countries that have ratified Kyoto
and want to go beyond what

the treaty requires. Others are in countries that haven't ratified Kyoto,
like the U.S., and want to

voluntarily invest in avoided-deforestation credits.

"In my mind, we have to save the forests of Papua and make money from
that," said Mr. Suebu.

Still in the planning stages, the Papua project faces other hurdles --
starting with jurisdictional issues over

who controls the land in question. Indonesia's powerful Forestry Ministry
says it has the power to

determine the fate of Papua's forests, a claim Mr. Suebu strenuously
disputes.

And Messrs. Sun and Suebu have yet to calculate how much, financially,
Papua would benefit from the

project. Specific figures won't be determined until more scientific
analysis is performed on the land and

its carbon stash.

Many global warming experts say paying governments to protect forests
needs to become part of the

arsenal to stop climate change. Papua's plan could offer an attractive
alternative for countries such as

Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo that have huge tropical rain
forests but need substantial

investment.

Mr. Suebu has proposed to protect more than half of the Papua land
targeted for development to see if

such a plan can work. In the meantime, he has applied heavy brakes to the
plantation companies'

expansion aims, so far refusing to grant them permission to proceed with
their planned developments.

The plantation companies in Papua aren't giving up, however. The only
four-star hotel in Jayapura is

swarming with Malaysian and Indonesian plantation executives hoping for an
audience in the governor's

mansion. The companies are proffering large investments in roads and ports
and the creation of local

jobs -- attractive incentives to the province's 2.5 million residents.
Many people here still hunt wild animals

for food and 40% live on less than $14 a month, according to the World Bank.

The companies may yet persuade Mr. Suebu to free up huge tracts for
development, especially if Mr.

Sun's plan fails to get off the ground. Even if the plan does take off,
Mr. Suebu may decide to allow a mix

of plantations and preservation to reap the maximum economic benefit.

Papua is the size of California and takes up the western half of the giant
island of New Guinea. (The

other half is the separate country of Papua New Guinea.) Indonesian Papua
is almost entirely covered by

vast stretches of virgin rain forests. Its central mountain range is
capped by glaciers. The only large

development in the province is a copper and gold mine owned by
Phoenix-based Freeport-McMoran

Copper & Gold Inc.

Mr. Suebu, a large man quick to break into a broad smile, was born on a
small island on a lake near

Jayapura. After law school, he founded a business conducting surveys for
public-works projects. He

became a member of the political party of Indonesia's former president and
strong man, Suharto. In

1988, he was appointed Papua's governor.

After Mr. Suharto's fall in 1998, Mr. Suebu moved to Jakarta as an advisor
to the president's successor,

B.J. Habibie. Shortly after, Mr. Suebu was appointed Indonesia's
ambassador to Mexico, where he

learned how nations such as Costa Rica were earning money from protecting
forests. A decade ago,

Costa Rica was a pioneer of so-called debt-for-nature swaps in which
developed countries wrote off

loans made to the republic in return for specific forest conservation
measures. "I thought, 'This is great'

because here you protect the forest but money still comes in," Mr. Suebu
said.

He returned to Indonesia in 2002, becoming an adviser to the World Bank.
In July 2006, he was elected

governor, the first time the post had been filled by popular vote.

On taking office, Mr. Suebu pledged the local government would make
decisions about Papua's forests --

not the central government in Jakarta.

The governor's powers had changed dramatically from his earlier stint in
the job. A 2001 law granted a

large degree of autonomy to Papua, including greater say over how forests
and other natural resources

are parceled out to investors. It also gave the provincial government 80%
of the revenues from natural-

resource-based industries such as mining and forestry -- a gusher of cash
that has allowed Mr. Suebu to

hand out $10,000 to every village in the province.

But a few weeks into his tenure, Mr. Suebu says he was called to Jakarta
by Indonesian President Susilo

Bambang Yudhoyono. Mr. Yudhoyono explained how the government hoped to
attract billions of dollars in

investment and create 3.5 million jobs in the country from developing
plantations of oil palms, cassava

and sugar cane -- the raw material for biofuels.

The Forestry Ministry, which argues it still has the final authority over
Papua's forests, had in 1999

earmarked land roughly the size of Portugal for agriculture. The president
asked Mr. Suebu to

immediately open up five million acres of that land for conversion to
plantations. Plantation companies

from Indonesia to Malaysia were running out of space elsewhere in the
country and wanted to expand to

the island.
[barnabas Suebu]

Mr. Suebu balked. In the past, he says, small-scale palm-oil ventures in
Papua have cut down and

exported valuable tropical hardwood but, in many cases, failed to develop
plantations on the cleared land.

In other cases, workers on the plantations were brought in from
Indonesia's main island of Java, sparking

social conflict with locals.

Papua's forests in the past several years also have become a rallying
point for environmentalists as

Indonesia's other virgin forests disappear. The country has the world's
fastest rate of deforestation, losing

an area the size of Belgium annually. In provinces such as Kalimantan and
Sumatra, the U.N. estimates

that lowland forests will be wiped out by 2022, putting the survival of
species like orangutans and

elephants at risk. Mr. Suebu didn't want Papua to be next. "We're not
doing that," he said he told the

president.

But the pressure on him only increased. The government of Malaysia, the
world's largest palm-oil

producer, invited Mr. Suebu to see for himself how plantations can spur
economic growth. Then, in

January, Indonesia's central government said it had signed preliminary
deals to develop biofuel projects

worth a combined $12.4 billion.

China National Offshore Oil Corp. and its Indonesian partner, PT Sinar Mas
Agro Resources &

Technology, announced they had agreed with Jakarta to invest $5 billion
over eight years to develop

palm-oil plantations in Papua.

"It's a matter of communicating the benefits to these people," said Rafael
Concepcion, executive director

of investor relations at Sinar Mas Agro, in an interview. Of the Papuans,
he added: "I think they are

tired...They live like nomads."

That same month, Mr. Sun, the carbon-trading proponent, made his first
trip to Indonesia from Australia

to discuss how to counter the threat from plantations.

In Indonesia, Mr. Sun met LeRoy Hollenbeck, an American adviser to the
governor of Aceh, an

Indonesian province at the other end of the country from Papua. The
governor, Irwandi Yusuf, was

looking for ways to make money by protecting forests. Mr. Sun offered to
use his business expertise to

raise money for a carbon fund that would pay for preservation. Mr.
Hollenbeck, who had known Mr.

Suebu since the 1980s, approached Papua's governor to see if he would be
interested in joining the

effort. Mr. Suebu said yes.

In April, the two governors held a summit in Bali, backed by the World
Bank. In a formal declaration, they

offered to stop forest destruction, and called on the global community to
step up with financing. Mr.

Suebu agreed to protect three million acres for carbon trading from the
land Jakarta wants to convert to

agriculture. That could rise to 12 million acres if the initial
carbon-trading plan is successful, he said.

Soon after the Bali declaration, Mr. Sun bought a controlling stake in the
Carbon Pool Pty. Ltd., a small

Australian company that in 2006 did one of the world's first
avoided-deforestation trades. In that project,

Carbon Pool bought out farmers' rights over 30,000 acres in Queensland, in
the northeast of Australia,

and sold the resulting carbon credits to Anglo-Australian mining company
Rio Tinto Ltd. The terms of the

deal were not disclosed.

Mr. Sun hopes to get Rio Tinto to invest in his new venture for Papua and
Aceh. Rick Humphries, head of

climate-change strategy for Rio Tinto's aluminum division in Brisbane,
says the company is "keen to look

at other opportunities" in forest-protection projects, but didn't
specifically comment on Papua.

In July, Mr. Sun traveled for the first time to Papua for a meeting with
Mr. Suebu in which they discussed

strategies for selling the Papua fund. Mr. Sun then flew directly to the
U.S. to hold preliminary meetings

with investors, including hedge funds, companies and rich individuals, he
says. He declines to release a

tally of the fund-raising efforts.

Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright at dowjones.com

---

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=34317


Radio New Zealand International

The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific

Te Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa

Sydney conference on Indonesia’s Papua told the military the main
impediment to development

Posted at 02:45 on 10 August, 2007 UTC

A Sydney conference on Indonesia’s Papua has heard concern over the role
of the Indonesian military

in the region.

A number of Papuan leaders, human rights activists and academics have been
attending this week’s

conference at Sydney University.

The chairman of the Papuan People’s Assembly, Agus Alue Alua, told the
conference that five years of

special autonomy status has done nothing to lift social conditions for
most Papuans.

He also said the main problem in Papua is the poor implementation of
special autonomy.

The Indonesia Human Rights Committee’s Maire Leadbetter says a recurring
theme among the speakers

is that the other main obstacle to development and basic human rights in
Papua continues to be the

military.

    “Each one of these academics stressed the point again, absolutely
unequivocally no change in the

Indonesian military that in fact it’s a reversal if anything, things have
gone back to that dual control and

presence of the Indoesian military at every level of society.”

---

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=34315


Radio New Zealand International

The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific

Te Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa

Sydney conference on Papua in dissent over autonomy support

Posted at 01:21 on 10 August, 2007 UTC

Tensions have arisen at a Sydney conference on Indonesia’s Papua over the
views of a Papuan

advocate of special autonomy.

A number of Papuan leaders, human rights activists and academics have been
attending this week’s

conference where Papua’s five-year-old special autonomy status has been
high on the agenda.

The chairman of the Papuan People’s Assembly, Agus Alue Alua, told the
conference that special

autonomy has done nothing to lift social conditions for most Papuans.

Indonesia Human Rights Committee’s Maire Leadbetter says Mr Alua’s
comments were widely endorsed

among those in attendance.

However she says the former spokesman for the PNG-based Papua Council
Presidium, Franzalbert

Joku, was a lone voice calling for Papuans to work within the framework of
special autonomy and not

towards self-determination.

    “But Franz Albert Joku takes the point of view that (special autonomy)
is really the only game in town

and when he expressed that point of view quite strongly he had quite a
strong reaction from the room,

particularly from West Papuan people who feel very angry with him that
he’s kind of sold out on their

aspirations.”

Maire Leadbetter

News Content © Radio New Zealand International
PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

© RNZI 2004

---

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s2000694.htm

Last Updated 09/08/2007, 15:13:14

A politician from Indonesia's Papua province has called on the Australian
government to raise the issue

of Papuan independence with the Indonesian president at next month's APEC
summit in Sydney.

The chairman of the upper house of the Papuan People's Assembly, Agus Alue
Alua, was speaking at a

human rights conference at Sydney University.

He says since special autonomy was introduced to the province five years
ago, Indonesia has doubled its

military deployment there and human rights violations against Papuans have
increased.

"We need international mediation to start a dialogue to achieve the
solution of political problem and

human rights violation in West Papua," Mr Alue Alua said.

The former Dutch colony in the western half of the island of New Guinea
has a majority Melanesian

population and was incorporated into Indonesia as a province in the 1960s.

An armed seccessionist group has been fighting for independence ever since.

---

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/pacbeat/stories/s2003460.htm

Papua:A foreign policy shame for Australia. - 13/08/2007

Australia's attitude to West Papua is one its three foreign policy shames
according to a senior member of

the Opposition Labor Party. Under the Lombok agreement signed recently
with Indonesia, Australia has

promised not to support separatist movements in West Papua or to encourage
activities in Australia by

people supportive of Papuan separtism.

Presenter - Jemima Garrett  Speaker - Meredith Bergmann, former President
of the New South Wales

Legislative Council,

listen windows media  listen windows media >

---

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0810-wsj.html


Papua seeks funds for fighting global warming through forest conservation
mongabay.com
August 10, 2007





In an article published today in The Wall Street Journal, Tom Wright
profiles the nascent "avoided

deforestation" carbon offset market in Indonesia's Papua province.

Barnabas Suebu, governor of the province which makes up nearly half the
island of New Guinea, has

teamed with an Australian millionaire, Dorjee Sun, to develop a carbon
offset plan that would see

companies in developing countries pay for forest preservation in order to
earn carbon credits.

Compliance would be monitored via satellite.

While the plan could generate millions of dollars in annual income, the
concept faces a number of

obstacles. First and foremost, there is no binging legal mechanism for
carbon offsets from avoided

deforestation. This may change in December when the United Nations'
Climate Change Conference will

meet on the Indonesian island of Bali to discuss whether to include
"avoided deforestation" projects in

climate agreements that replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

Papua's efforts also face challenges from the central government -- namely
the Forestry Ministry which

maintains that it alone has the power to determine the use of Papua's
forests -- and the burgeoning oil

palm industry. Chinese and Indonesian companies have recently announced
plans to spend billions to

convert forest to vast palm oil plantations to be surging demand for
biodiesel. Initiatives to limit the use of

forest are not popular among such firms.

Nevertheless, Suebu and Sun are busy pitching the concept. In July Sun
flew to the U.S. to hold talks

with potential investors, including wealth individuals, hedge firms, and
companies.

Tom Wright (2007). Indonesian Proposal: Pay Us Not to Chop Down Our Trees.
Papua Governor Touts

Carbon-Credit Fund; Developers Put on Hold. The Wall Street Journal August
10, 2007; Page A1

---

http://www.columbian.com/lifeHome/lifeHomeNews/08132007news182476.cfm

(abridged for relevancy)

 Monday, August 13, 2007
BY MIKE BAILEY, Columbian staff writer

Cool under pressure

Elle Bryant's frightening tale of survival after a fall from a 20-foot
cliff in Indonesia earned her a $500

scholarship from Guidepost's Sweet 16 magazine.

A story about Bryant's accident appeared in the June-July issue of the
magazine. It recounts the hours

after the fall, when she had to be transported from the remote island to
receive medical care in Papua,

Indonesia.

Even with a collapsed lung, Bryant said she kept her cool before she was
rescued.

"I spent the night on the beach," she said. "We had to wait until the next
day for the boat and then for a

taxi to the hospital in Papua. We didn't know until we got there exactly
what was wrong. They reinflated

the lung and I didn't have any broken bones."

Playing it cool saved her life, the medical staff told her.

"They said I wouldn't have survived with just one lung if I had been
breathing hard from being scared,"

she said.

Bryant, 18, graduated from Mountain View High School this year and will
attend Seattle Pacific University

this fall.

---

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/09/asia/AS-GEN-Indonesia-Earthquake-Glance.php

A look at Indonesia's earthquakes, their magnitudes and death tolls
The Associated Press
Published: August 8, 2007

A look at some earthquakes in Indonesia since 2000:

_ Aug. 8, 2007: A powerful undersea earthquake with a preliminary 7.5
magnitude strikes the capital of

Jakarta, shaking tall buildings and sending panicked residents fleeing
into the streets.

_ March 6, 2007: A magnitude-6.3 earthquake strikes Sumatra island,
leaving at least 52 people dead

and some 250 injured. Two hours later, a 6.1 aftershock rattles the region.

_ Jan. 21, 2007: A magnitude-7.3 earthquake in a regional capital on
Sulawesi island in northeastern

Indonesia leaves four people dead and four injured.

_ July 17, 2006: A magnitude-6.1 earthquake triggers a tsunami off of Java
island's southern coast,

killing at least 600 people.

_ May 27, 2006: A magnitude-6.2 quake flattens homes and hotels near the
ancient central city of

Yogyakarta, killing more than 3,000 and injuring thousands.

_ March 28, 2005: A magnitude-8.7 quake strikes Nias and Simeulue islands
off the western coast of

Sumatra, killing about 900 people and flattening thousands of houses and
bridges.

_ Dec. 26, 2004: A magnitude-9 earthquake ruptures the sea floor off
Sumatra island, triggering a

tsunami that hits a dozen countries, including Indonesia, where at least
131,029 are killed and tens of

thousands remain missing.

_ Nov. 26, 2004: A magnitude-6.4 earthquake rocks Indonesia's West Papua,
near Nabire, killing about

30 people and causing dozens of buildings and homes to collapse.

_ Nov. 12, 2004: A magnitude-6 quake strikes off the eastern coast of Alor
island, about 1,600 kilometers

(1,000 miles) east of Jakarta. At least 27 people are killed and hundreds
of buildings are damaged.

_ Feb. 6-7, 2004: A magnitude-6.9 quake on Feb. 6 and a magnitude-7.1
aftershock the following day kill

34 and devastate Nabire in remote Papua province.

_ Nov. 2, 2002: A magnitude-7.7 earthquake rocks Indonesia's Sumatra
island, killing two people and

injuring at least 40.

_ June 4, 2000: A magnitude-7.9 quake hits Bengkulu province, killing at
least 117 people and injuring

about 1,900.

_ May 4, 2000: A magnitude-7.5 earthquake shakes Sulawesi province,
killing at least 35 people and

injuring at least 148.

---

http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/08/14/lifestyle/lifestyle_30044866.php

(abridged for relevancy)

Staging mutations
Artists from Southeast Asian combine tradition and contemporary
performance styles for the first 'Live

Arts' festival

Published on August 14, 2007


Dance and theatre aficionados are in for a treat this week. "Live Arts
Bangkok" is the inaugural

performance arts festival hosted by the Southeast Asian Ministers of
Education Organisation's Regional

Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts - Seameo Spafa for short.

The event is being staged at two historic venues, MR Kukrit Pramoj House
and the Siam Society, and

features acclaimed local and regional dance and theatre artists from nine
Asian countries.

Another piece of good news: admission is free - call Spafa now to reserve
your seats.

"'Live Arts' is one in a series of Spafa's regular events for 2007," says
research and development officer

Tang Fu Kuen, who initiated and is organising the event.

Those goals are first, to regenerate and mobilise heritage spaces and the
arts; second, to present some

of the best regional artists in the performing arts today; and lastly, to
educate and increase appreciation

and knowledge of traditional art forms and contemporary expressions.

The list of performing artists along with brief synopses of their work
below firmly supports his statement.

Papua-born dancer and choreographer Jecko Siompo will perform "Tikus
Tikus", a duet of sharp

relations in which rhythmical steps from Papua folk and tribal dance mesh
with the pedestrian motions of

daily life.


The Thursday programme at MR Kukrit Pramoj House is by invitation only.
All other shows are open to

the public and start at 7pm. Seats are limited. Call Soros at (02) 280
4022 for reservations. For

information, visit www.seameo-spafa.org.

The writer can be contacted at Pawit.M at chula.ac.th.

Pawit Mahasarinand

The Nation

---

http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2007/8/12/yudhoyono-to-attend-youth-day-event-in-boven-digoel/

National

08/12/07 13:41
Yudhoyono to attend Youth Day event in Boven Digoel

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was reported to
attend the Youth Day

event to be held in the Boven Digoel District, South Papua, which directly
shares the border with

neighboring Papua New Guinea.

"Holding youth activity in the Boven Digoel district is the best choice as
it has an important history of the

nation," Youth and Sports Adhiyaksa told ANTARA on Saturday.

In addition to some youth activities during the commemoration of Youth Day
there, the head of state is

scheduled to lay a stone which will mark the construction of Bung Hatta`s
monument in remembrance his

fighting spirit.

One of Bung Hatta`s daughters, Meutia Hatta who is now the state minister
for women`s empowerment,

will also attend the stone-laying ceremony, he added.

According to Adhiyaksa, his ministry has prepared some packages, most of
which are designed to

empower the youths living in border area with a pilot project in Boven
Digoel.

"A mini stadium with a capacity of 150,000 seats will also be built to
develop sports activity there,"

Adhiyaksa said.

Boven Digoel can be reached by land, air and sea transportation means. By
air, it will take only one hour

flight, 15-hour trip by bus and one day travel by a ship from Marquee. (*)

Copyright © 2007 ANTARA

---

Sender: tribal-melanesia at yahoogroups.com


Cahaya Papua (p.1) 13 Aug 2007



Tangguh LNG could reduce fishing area in Bintuni: NGO



The Manokwari-based Perdu non-government organization said Saturday that
the presence of Tangguh

LNG has not yet provided answers to local problems in Bintuni Bay.
Mujianto, Perdu’s director, said he

feared that Tangguh LNG could reduce fishing area in the district.

“It (the possibility of fishing area

reduction) is due to the fact that most of Tangguh LNG’s sites are located
in the sea, which is an area for

fishermen to earn their living. Currently this problem is neither being
experienced nor visible because the

company has yet to give a clear distinction of which area is restricted,”
Mujianto told Cahaya Papua in an

interview Saturday.

---

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22209295-27197,00.html


Get to know the neighbours
Article from: The Courier-Mail

Cynthia Webb

August 09, 2007 12:00am

THE relationship between Australia and Indonesia is longer than most
people realise. Hundreds of years

ago sailors from what is now Sulawesi, the Macassans, were coming ashore
in northern Australia,

socialising with the Aborigines during their expeditions in the season for
gathering trepang (sea-

cucumber).

During World War II, Australia at first sided with conservative and old
established colonial ideas, so when

the Japanese invaded Indonesia and the Dutch colonial masters had to flee,
Australia allowed a Dutch

"government in exile" at Wacol, in Brisbane's southwest. Even now, just
south of Brisbane, the suburb

Tanah Merah (it means Red Earth, in Bahasa Indonesia) provides a reminder
of the times when the

Indonesians, who were in the Dutch service, were located in Queensland.

Tanah Merah was the name of the prison camp far upstream on the Digul
River in West Papua (now Irian

Jaya) – a malarial hell-hole, also known as Boven Digul – the camp where
the Dutch held their political

prisoners. In 1943 they were brought to Australia on a ship named The Both
and at first were held in

prison camps at Cowra and Liverpool, in NSW. They included 500 men, women
and children.

Dockside workers and railway staff had found desperate notes explaining
their predicament, thrown from

portholes and trains by the Indonesian prisoners, at the time of their
arrival.

Some time later Australia supported Indonesia's application for entry into
the United Nations.

After Ngurah Rai International Airport opened in Bali in 1972, that island
soon became Australia's "own

back yard" holiday destination. It coincided with the rise of surfing as
an international sport, and Bali had

first class surf, so was popular for this, as well as for its unique
cultural identity. It was also a first stop on

the "hippie trail" through Asia to Europe. Many Aussies formed strong
bonds with the Balinese, which

have lasted to the present day. Bali became one of the world's top tourist
destinations. Little by little it

surrendered its old way of life to accommodate tourism, all the time
steadfastly maintaining its

Balinese/Hindu traditions.

Then came the darkest day – the tragic Bali bombing of October 12, 2002.
This shocked and horrified

everyone – Balinese, other Indonesians and Australians alike. Bali was the
epitome of a tropical

paradise, and all who loved it were traumatised.

Tourism plummeted, especially from Australia, the primary tourism market,
and the Balinese suffered

deeply since their culture had become so dependent on tourism.

Two years later, when a recovery was beginning, a second bombing occurred
and then there were drug

busts of Australians. These foolhardy Aussies came with their forbidden
baggage, at a time when there

was a crackdown on "narkoba" – the Indonesian word for narcotics.

Laws were tough, because of concerns for the explosion of drug use within
the nation. Marijuana was

included in this definition. These drug busts provoked a media frenzy
which caused further damage to

tourism in Bali and wider Indonesia.

On the diplomatic front, Australia and Indonesia have had a companion
roller-coaster ride for a long time

– since the December 1975 East Timor invasion, which Australia chose to
support (or at least not protest)

until the time of East Timor's fight for independence, when we switched
sides, until more recent,

disagreements regarding refugees from Irian Jaya.

Both sides assume postures, issue statements, attempt to score points
against the other to gain political

advantage, while the ordinary people struggle to understand one another's
motivations and policies.

But the most positive thing has always been the unshakeable bond that
exists between the ordinary

people of these two neighbouring nations, which transcends politics. As
neighbours, we have

communicated, we have befriended one another, we have married one another,
forging unbreakable

bonds.

Whatever the politicians do or say, there are many people on both sides of
the Arafura Sea who know

that we are all good people – friends and neighbours – and that as
neighbours we must get along and

support each other for mutual benefit. In every country there is a small
minority of fanatics, our own

included.

Indonesians are a very friendly and welcoming people. The history, art and
culture of the Indonesian

archipelago is certainly an eye opener and an education for Australians,
who will gain much from

exploring a culture that is older and richer than modern Australian history.

Indonesia is still a young nation and has been through very difficult
times, so understanding and co-

operation with its more fortunate southern neighbour is crucial – for both
sides.

Because of the history of struggle, quite a lot of contemporary art of
Indonesia has featured political and

social themes.

Festival Nusantara, now on at The Brisbane Powerhouse, provides
Australia's first major arts festival

celebrating Indonesian culture.

Cynthia Webb is a Gold Coast writer.

For more information go to Festival Nusantara.

---

http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=08-03-07&storyID=27679

The Berkeley Daily Planet

Web 	www.berkeleydailyplanet.com

Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Indonesia and the U.S. — A Shameful Record
By Conn Hallinan

This is a tale about politics, influence, money and murder. It began more
than 40 years ago with a

bloodletting so massive no one quite knows how many people died. Half a
million? A million? Through four

decades the story has left a trail of misery and terror. Last month it
claimed four peasants, one of them a

27-year old mother.

It is the history of the relationship between the United States and the
Indonesian military, and unless

Congress puts the brakes on the Bush Administration’s plans to increase
aid and training for that army, it

is likely to claim innumerable victims in the future.

Speaking alongside Indonesia’s Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsone in
Singapore last month, U.S.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the White House intends “to deepen the
strategic partnership

between Indonesia and the USA.”

Given what that partnership has led to over the past four decades, it a
profoundly disturbing statement.

The Washington-Jakarta narrative begins in 1965 with the Tentara Nasional
Indonesia’s (TNI)—the

Indonesian Army— massacre of Indonesian leftists, a bloodletting in which
the U.S. was a partner. How

many died is unclear, certainly 500,000, and maybe up to a million or
more. According to the U.S.

National Security Archives published by George Washington University, the
U.S. not only encouraged

the annihilation of Indonesia’s left, it actually fingered individuals to
the military death squads.

When Suharto, the dictator who took over after the 1965 massacres, decided
to invade the former

Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975, the Ford Administration gave him
a green light. Out of a

population of 600,000 to 700,000, the invasion killed between 83,000 and
182,000, according to the

Commission of Reception, Truth and Reconciliation.

“As a permanent member of the Security Council and superpower,” the
Commission found, “the U.S


consented to the invasion and allowed Indonesia to use its military
equipment in the knowledge that this

violated U.S. law and would be used to suppress the right of
self-determination.”

The U.S. was not alone in abetting the invasion. Australian Prime Minister
Gough Whitlam “encouraged”

the invasion, according to the Jakarta Post, and Japan, Indonesia’s
leading source of aid and trade,

stayed on the sidelines. France and Britain increased trade and aid in the
invasion’s aftermath, and in an

effort to protect Indonesia’s Catholics, the Vatican remained silent.

It was not the first time the U.S. and its allies had rolled for Jakarta.
When the Suharto dictatorship short

-circuited a 1969 United Nations plebiscite on the future of West Papua,
no one raised a protest.

Through six presidents—Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush and Clinton—the
TNI had carte blanche to

brutally suppress autonomy movements in Aech, Papua, and East Timor,
murder human rights activists,

and—according to the U.S. Department of Defense, the Justice Department
and the State

Department—engage in violence and oppression against women, threats to
civil liberties, child

exploitation, religious persecution, and judicial and prison abuse.

After more than 30 years of either encouraging or turning a blind eye to
the savagery of the TNI, the

Clinton Administration and the UN finally intervened to stop the rampage
unleashed on the Timorese when

they had the effrontery to vote for independence in 1999. However, before
the force of mostly Australian

troops could land, TNI-sponsored and led militias killed some 1500 people,
destroyed 70 percent of East

Timor’s infrastructure, and deported 250,000 Timorese to Indonesian West
Timor.

Indonesia has refused to hand over any of the TNI officers currently
charged for crimes against

humanity for leading the 1999 pogrom or taking part in the brutal
suppression of East Timor from 1975 to

1999. Indeed, many have been reassigned to places like West Papua, where
Indonesia is attempting to

crush a low-level independence insurgency.

Col. Burhanuddin Siagian, indicted for crimes against humanity for his
actions in East Timor, was

recently appointed a sub-regional military commander in Papua.

“It is shocking that a government supposedly committed to military reform
and fighting impunity would

appoint an indicted officer to a sensitive senior post in Papua,” Paula
Makabory, spokesperson for the

Institute for Human Rights Study & Advocacy—West Papua told the Australian
Broadcasting Company. A

coaltion of human rights organizations is demanding that Indonesian
President Susilo Yudhoyono

withdraw the appointment and suspend Siagian from duty.

Several other commanders, all under indictment for human rights crimes,
have also been appointed to

military posts in Papua and the province of Aech.

And how does the TNI continue to get away with this?

Starting in 2001, Indonesia began a multi-million dollar lobbying
campaign— abetted by the White

House—to lift the ban on military aid to Indonesia. A leading force in
that campaign is Paul Wolfowitz,

disgraced former head of the World Bank and ambassador to Indonesia from
1986 to 1989.

The lobbying worked and sanctions were gradually relaxed. Military aid
more than doubled from 2001 to

2004. In 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “A reformed and
effective Indonesian military

is in the interest of everyone in the region,” and lifted the last
restrictions on military aid.

Part of the “reforms” Rice referred to require the TNI to divest itself of
its vast economic network, which,

according to the International Relations Center, accounts for 70 to 75
percent of the military’s funding.

The TNI runs corporations, mining operations, and cooperatives.

A 2004 law requires the TNI to divest itself of its holdings by 2009, but
a loophole allows the military to

keep “foundations” and “cooperatives.” According to Defense Minister
Sudarsone, 1494 out of the TNI’s

1500 businesses are “foundations’ or “cooperatives.”

“The core problem for addressing impunity [of TNI commanders] is that
civilian government has no

control over the military while they do not control their finances,” Human
Rights Watch Chair Charmin

Mohamed told Radio Australia, “and on this key issue Yudhoyono has clearly
failed.”

While the military continues to resist efforts to reform, there is growing
anger at the TNI’s penchant for

violence.

In late May, Indonesian Marines opened fire on East Java demonstrators
protesting the TNI’s claim to

land the protestors say was taken illegally. Four people were killed and
several others wounded, including

a four-year old child whose mother was among the dead.

The shootings have angered some important political figures. Djoko Suslio,
who sits on the powerful

Defense Committee, accused the military of using “weapons, brought with
money from the state budget to

kill their own brothers,” and the important Islamic Crescent Star Party
denounced the killings.

Abdurraham Wahid, a former president and the leader of the National
Awakening Party, says his

organization intends to file civil suits against the Navy. The Missing
Person and Victims of Violence

organization is petitioning the government to move the case from military
to civilian courts.

The TNI’s track record has also angered some in the U.S. Congress.
Representative Nita Lowey (D-NY)

and Chris Smith (R-NJ) are currently leading a campaign to cut the Bush
Administration’s proposed aid

package because of Jakarta’s failure to prosecute human rights violations.
Arrayed against that is the

Bush Administration’s campaign to surround China with U.S. allies and more
than 40 years of

cooperation or acquiescence to the brutality of the Indonesian military.

For further information, go to the East Timor and Indonesian Action
Network (ETAN.org)

---

Indonesia Proposes Lower Limit on Ore Output at Freeport Mine

By Bambang Dwi Djanuarto and Berni Moestafa

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., the
world's second-largest copper producer, should lower maximum
daily production at its Grasberg mine in Indonesia to reduce
environmental damage, according to government auditors.

Indonesia should reduce the production limit to between 200,000
tons and 250,000 tons of ore a day from the current cap of
300,000 tons, said Witoro S. Soelarno, head of mine inspection
at the nation's Energy Ministry and a member of the auditors.
The cut is to limit environmental damage, he said.

``We hope the audit results can be implemented this year,''
Soelarno said in a telephone interview today. The government has
yet to adopt the team's recommendation, he said.

Reducing output at the mine, which provided almost 4 percent of
the world's mined copper last year, may help support prices amid
speculation losses linked to U.S. subprime mortgages will spread
to commodities. Copper, nickel and zinc prices fell in London
yesterday, capping a third straight week of declines.

Copper for delivery in three months dropped $20, or 0.3 per
cent, to $7,450 a ton on the London Metal Exchange yesterday.
The price declined 2.9 percent this week, while nickel fell 8.6
percent, and zinc dropped 0.9 percent.

New Orleans-based Freeport normally produces about 220,000 tons
of ore a day at Grasberg, said Mindo Pangaribuan, a spokesman
for the company's Indonesian unit in Jakarta.

Freeport's operations are ``in line with government regulation
and follow the requirement set under the environmental impact
analysis,'' Pangaribuan said today.

Environmental Violations

The company targets a production rate of 220,000 tons to 230,000
tons a day under a five-year plan, Pangaribuan said. He declined
to say whether Freeport plans to change the target.

Indonesia initiated the audit after local activists last year
called for a shut down of the Grasberg mine, in Papua, as
Freeport doesn't do enough to benefit local people.

In May 2006, a team of legislators inspecting Grasberg's
open-pit mine claimed they had found environmental violations
that allegedly threaten the area's ecosystem. Two sites at
Grasberg mine don't meet environmental standards, Soelarno said
without elaborating.

The audit recommends Indonesia revise the method used for
calculating Freeport's royalty payment, he said. Instead of
calculating the royalty on a three-month basis, the government
should calculate the amount on a per-transaction basis, he said.

East Java

Freeport should also pay a royalty on sulfuric acid it sells
from its copper smelter in East Java to PT Petrokimia Gresik,
Soelarno added. The smelter processes about 30 percent of
Grasberg's mine output, he said.

The audit suggests the government ask Freeport to increase the
amount it processes at its East Java smelter to 40 percent to 50
percent of Grasberg's output, he added.

Freeport runs Grasberg under a 30-year contract with the
government that started in 1992 and can be extended for up to a
further 20 years. The terms can only be modified by agreement of
both parties, Freeport spokesman William Collier said Feb. 10
last year. Grasberg is also the world's largest gold mine.

---

Indonesia Auditor Seeks New Royalty Base For Freeport -Report

JAKARTA, AUg 13 (Dow Jones)--An Indonesian government audit team
has recommended that the government change the way it calculates
the royalty paid by PT Freeport Indonesia, and lower the copper
miner's production limit, Bisnis Indonesia reported Monday.

The audit team is proposing for royalty to be based on the
same-day copper ore price, but its proposal must be approved in
a cabinet meeting, the newspaper quoted Witoro Soelarno, an
official at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources as
saying.

The team has submitted the proposal to the finance minister, he
said.

Currently, royalty paid by the local unit of U.S.-based
Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc (FCX) is calculated on a base
price that is derived from the average three-month price of
copper ores, the newspaper reported.

The audit team also recommended that Freeport's output cap be
cut to 200,000-250,000 metric tons a day from 300,000 tons
currently, to prevent environmental damages, Minister of Energy
and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro was quoted as saying.

However, Freeport previously said it has set a target to produce
220,000-230,000 tons a day of ore under a five-year plan.

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