And this is how Jakarta is dealing with the abduction of 200 Nigerian girls, so . . .

A friend writes:

“Dear Sara,

Below please find another example of how the ministers under SBY [current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] deal with women’s issues.

Therefore it will be a waste of time to write to SBY regarding the caning of the rape victim in Aceh.

The only possible way to have any influence is to use the foreign press as social pressure, as a reminder to  whoever will be elected this year that Indonesia will lose its credibility as a leader among ASEAN nations. And as long as the Indonesian government consists of incompetent and corrupt officials, countries like Malaysia, Singapore etc. will overtake our position as leaders in world affairs.”

Communications Minister Under Fire for Response to Boko Haram Question

The Jakarta Post, May 12, 2014

Jakarta. Gaffe-prone Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring stoked ire on Twitter after he appeared to make light of a question about a website supporting Nigeria-based militant group Boko Haram — responsible for thousands of killings and the recent kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls — even as he moved to ban a popular video sharing site over supposedly “pornographic” content.

Radical Islamist website Arrahmah has praised the terrorist group.

“Mr. @tifsembiring, you promised to fight pro-terrorism websites. How will you respond against @arrahmah which is pro-BokoHaram?” Islamic Liberal Network (JIL) activist Akhmad Sahal tweeted on Sunday.

“Do you want a serious one or a joke?” Tifatul, a senior member and former chairman of the tIslamist leaning Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), responded.

Sahal said that he expected a serious, official answer.

Tifatul wrote: “[You] go to school far away and still ask about halal-haram, please bro… :D.”

Sahal is based at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, according to his twitter information.

He asked if Tifatul’s tweet constituted the official government response.

“He he he. I haven’t answered about Boko Haram [because] it became a fuss. You yourself know whether kidnapping is halal or haram. Don’t you have other work to do, commentators… :D,” the Communications Minister wrote.

The exchange sparked outrage over its seeming flippancy, and it coincided with the ministry’s controversial decision to ban popular video sharing site Vimeo, which caused a furor of its own.

Political activist Fadjroel Rachman tweeted: “Boko Haram = halal-haram? For God’s sake minister.”

Tifatul is no stranger to online controversy or off-color responses to tragedy.

In March, he attracted attention for following a pornographic Twitter account “by accident.”

In November of 2010, followers accused him of hypocrisy after he was seen shaking hands with US First Lady Michelle Obama after stating that he did not shake hands with women for religious reasons.

“I tried to prevent [the handshake] but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me, so we touched,” he tweeted at the time.

In 2009, he blamed immorality for a Sumatra earthquake and other natural disasters.

He has over 756,000 Twitter followers.

Fabulous.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/communications-minister-fire-response-boko-haram-query/

Vigilante Sharia: sexual torture as the enforcement weapon of choice in Aceh

By now the US and world wire service has reprinted the story that first appeared in the Jakarta papers last week of the woman suspected of adultery in Aceh who was raped by 8 men, doused with excrement, then turned over to Sharia “authorities” for her “real” punishment. And I do believe that almost the entire global community finds this incident as sickening as I do, but there are so many layers of sickness to it that authorities, world leaders, human rights NGOs, and Acehnese citizens themselves seem paralyzed to do anything that will help the situation.  Where do you start?  Start with a province where the majority live in poverty, are jobless, unable to feed their families, have barely survived 30 years of warfare in their own backyards, and then ten years ago watched as 180,000 of their family members were swept away by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.  Start with the venomous bitterness that the thousands of Free Aceh Movement (GAM) supporters feel towards the Indonesian government for not keeping promises made as far back as the 1940’s regarding Aceh’s ability to govern itself.  Start with (as usual) corrupt and greedy politicians who promise these poor, disenfranchised, furious young men that if they help elect this or that politician (using whatever means necessary) Aceh will be given full autonomy and will be able to claim what is its right.  And that “right,” specifically, is the proceeds from natural resource extraction.  And they are convinced that since the “enemy” is Jakarta, the Indonesian Constitution is also the enemy.  No matter what Sharia implies, the fact that it is not the law of the land according to Jakarta is enough for most of the disenfranchised to grasp it to their bosoms regardless of their understanding of it.  Understanding is not the issue for these delirious groups of men spoiling for a fight.  Contrary to what some of the articles regarding this rape and caning have reported, Aceh is NOT allowed to practice Sharia if it violates the spirit of the Constitution. The Helsinki MoU stated that National law takes precedence over Sharia law.  There is NO national precedent for caning, stoning, rape, or public humiliation.

 All politicians know this, but few are acting on this blatant disregard for the law so close to election time.  I do not know what their excuses were the other times this raping of a “Sharia violator” has happened.  And it happens a lot, especially in eastern Aceh, GAM stronghold, only it was the Sharia police themselves who raped the suspected adulterers.  I doubt they raped the men involved.  And I wonder why that act in itself is not considered adultery, and why they were not caned.  I suppose it’s too much to wish for extra.  Where’s a useful gang of Sharia rapists when you need them?  I am trying my hardest not to become disillusioned by a few incidents, but it is very difficult not to despair right now.

Another thing the articles are missing is that these thugs, rapists and witch-hunters are not even obeying the twisted version of Sharia that they purport to be upholding.  For one thing, “adultery” can only be proved by having three witnesses to the actual sexual event (which is not just an unsupervised visit to someone’s house—that may be against Sharia but it’s not adultery.)  So . . . three witnesses to adultery . . . which makes you wonder about the mental health of a society that by and large has nothing better to do then lurk about in packs of three or more, looking for people who they hope they can see punished.  The fact that these articles report that “prominent Islamic leader” Teungku Faisal Ali "cautioned citizens against taking Sharia into their own hands" is fairly ironic, since that is what Aceh’s administration has done all along--for political, not religious reasons. Jakarta will not step in and put an end to this horror show so close to the presidential elections—yet that is what it MUST do, now.  Everyone's a Sharia vigilante now—it gives these impoverished and marginalized fighting-age males a convenient target for all their rage and powerlessness—and it has absolutely nothing to do with Islam.

For my part I plan on contacting as many human rights organizations and global women’s groups as I can to at least place a spotlight on what has become essentially a fascist state run by sexual sadists.

Jakarta has got to step up NOW and put an end to this flouting of the Constitution.

My Indonesian friends are also saddened, disgusted, and disheartened about what has happened.  One writes “I am angry, sad, and frustrated because I don't know what to do to stop that stupid Shariah law!! Maybe we should call it ‘Shariah low!’"

Another wrote back to her: “Please let’s not give up; as Bung Karno said, ‘There is no end for a fighting nation.’ We should move forwards until justice prevails.  I am just not sure whether I can be in Jakarta right now.”

Read the article/s here:

Indonesian woman who was gang raped by eight men now faces caning for adultery

Eight men allegedly gang-raped a widow in the conservative province of Aceh, accusing her of having sex with a married man. The region’s Sharia leader decided that despite the trauma that came from rape, the woman still deserves to be caned for the initial charge of adultery.

BY Carol Kuruvilla  NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, May 8, 2014, 11:51 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/indonesia-gang-rape-victim-faces-caning-adultery-article-1.1784418#ixzz31WLmKUVN

Aceh Rape Victim to Be Caned, Shariah Official Insists

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/aceh-rape-victim-caned-shariah-

Indonesian gang-rape victim faces caning

Widow purportedly punished for having sex with married man may still be caned for affair under sharia laws of Aceh province      Tuesday 6 May 2014 09.52 EDT

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/indonesian-woman-allegedly-gang-raped-punishment-caning

Carrots, Sticks and Palm Oil: the RSPO and the myth of sustainability

Michael Bachelard’s great article (with video!) on the continued destruction of Aceh’s protected forests by palm oil barons and mining companies was followed here by a further exploration of the post-conflict “boom” in the corporate and government-sponsored assault on the Leuser ecosystem by Bobby Anderson. To round out this ghastly trinity of economic and environmental doom I’d like to reprint a 2013 article by Philip Jacobson from the Indonesian magazine Tempo, which provides and update on my posts a few months ago regarding the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).  This entity, established with international donor funding including grants from the World Bank, has gone on to become a parody of itself.  Its extensive branding campaign has touted palm oil as “sustainable” and “green,” while it completely disregards its own regulations requiring regular monitoring for environmental protection, worker conditions, and community concerns.  I was going to say “community development,” but the administration of Aceh has now made this their new buzz phrase for unlimited deforestation and extraction, profiting government officials and the corporate heads and plantation owners. 

I am very excited that I have learned to embed entire documents into this blog so you can read the whole thing below.  I’d like to draw your attention, however, to interview with Tim Benton at the end of the article.  Dr Benton was the keynote speaker at the RSPO 2013 convention and is employed by the United Kingdom “to coordinate thinking on food security challenges over the next decades.”  He says in part: “I think the danger is thinking you can convert the whole of Malaysia or Indonesia into a plantation forest and for it to be sustainable with one or two little blips, small little remnants of forest where you put the orangutans.  You can’t ignore the large-scale problems. If you convert the whole of Indonesia into that same thing then it becomes unsustainable on a spatial scale. Then you’ve got the temporal scale: what looks good over a five-year period or a 10-year period, over a 50 or 100 period looks like shite.” 

Post-conflict does NOT mean post-corruption, extortion, or election violence: Welcome to present-day Aceh

This is a really great article by my good friend Bobby Anderson. He explains briefly and succinctly the transformation of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) into a thug-like crime family the majority of whom are impoverished, now unemployable, and angry enough to act as “enforcers” of those few elite ex-GAM who made it into political circles and are doing everything in their power to stay there, even if their methods are unethical, brutal and hypocritical.

This is one of the main threads that runs through what I hope our documentary will cover. You’ll see how it’s connected to everything we’ve been looking into, from deforestation/illegal logging to extraction concessions to the displacement of traditional communities to serve the interests of a wealthy few—or the few who want to get even more wealthy.  How to succeed in business in Aceh?  Leave your conscience and your scruples at the port.

Why Aceh Is Not Open for Business

By Bobby Anderson, The Jakarta Globe, May 4, 2014

(JG Graphics/Modina Rimolfa)

The provincial government of Aceh has sought to attract investors in earnest since the end of the conflict between the central government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in 2005. It has had to contend with two fundamental concerns that potential investors have, of which the most important is insecurity. Of lesser concern, to me at least, is alleged Islamic “fundamentalism” there.

Aceh governor and former separatist Zaini Abdullah sought to reassure potential investors at last month’s Go West! conference in Jakarta. Concerns about insecurity were said to be “baseless.” And referring to Aceh’s codification of Shariah law for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, Abdullah said Shariah “applies only to Muslims. For non-Muslims, there is no obligation at all to comply.”

Both statements are disingenuous. Let’s begin with the latter. In December Governor Abdullah signed into law a Qanun Jinayat or behavioral bylaw that requires non­-Muslims to follow Shariah. This means, for example, that non-Muslim women must wear headscarves; three warnings and then they’ll be caned.

Regarding “baseless” security concerns; ahead of the April 9 legislative elections, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) counted 48 cases of election-related violence from January to March, including murder. Much of the violence occurred between two local parties: the Aceh Party (PA, Abdullah’s party) and the Aceh National Party (PNA). PA deems itself GAM’s only legitimate political successor. PNA contests this claim: it was founded by GAM veteran and ex-Governor Irwandi Yusuf.

Despite this violence, the 2014 election was an improvement on Aceh’s 2012 gubernatorial election, which pitted the incumbent Irwandi against Abdullah. The 2012 election also illustrates PA’s way of “doing business.” Irwandi was elected as an independent in 2006; he was immensely popular due to his universal health care provision and his perceived incorruptibility. PA didn’t wish to compete against him and sought to disallow his candidacy, and when that failed, it boycotted the election registration. The deadline passed: it demanded to be allowed to register again, and PA insinuated that it would “return to the past” if not allowed to re-register — i.e., that war would resume. It was allowed to register.

The number of killings, grenade attacks, and other violent incidents carried out by PA supporters in the months preceding the election correlated with the shift in public support from Irwandi to PA. In conversations with dozens of friends I once worked with in Aceh, nearly all voted for PA, not out of a legitimate desire to do so, but out of fear. Abdullah unseated Irwandi, who was actually assaulted at Abdullah’s inauguration. To label an election result based on such pervasive intimidation “free and fair,” as many observers did, is a farce. As was much of the 2014 election in rural eastern Aceh, where friends of mine described PA standing in the voting booths, to ensure people voted correctly.

In fairness to Governor Abdullah, election violence is targeted. But let’s consider the macro aspects of Aceh’s post-conflict security environment and its impact on the investment climate.

The end of the conflict did not mean the end of insurgent funding streams: GAM was rebranded as the Aceh Transition Committee (KPA), and KPA’s local manifestations generally continued to do what they’d always done: levy parallel taxes. This is often referred to in non-conflict contexts as organized crime.

GAM’s successor bodies could not provide for their grassroots in the way that their grassroots could provide for themselves during the war, when extortion and other crimes were “justifiable.” This isn’t to say that all GAM member were criminals; many fought for legitimate reasons. But insurgents need funds, and they are generally excluded from licit opportunities.

KPA channeled cash payments to combatants and communities. But it wasn’t enough. The rural Aceh economy couldn’t absorb this excess labor; many veterans simply couldn’t find decent work. And for ex-combatants, the jobs had to be better than what existed before. People weren’t going to return to working on land they don’t even own. And so crime remained a livelihood.

Meanwhile, GAM “taxed” everything it could — post-tsunami construction and other projects, small businesses, even ordinary households. I witnessed all this, in Aceh Utara, Pidie, Bireuen, and other parts of the GAM heartland where I worked. My teams were carjacked; we had to shut projects to dig wells, build markets and repair irrigation because of the constant threats and demands. Extortion occurred from the largest construction projects in the province all the way down to my mechanic neighbor in Lhokseumawe who was still paying illegal levies to the same people he was paying before the conflict ended. These are only a few aspects of a climate of insecurity that continues to the present day.

Some projects were meant to provide opportunities for ex-combatants: through jobs, grants, training opportunities. I managed a few of them as well. The trainings to individuals tended to work. Some of the secondments to existing small businesses led to jobs. But these only worked in the towns. Many businesses failed. So did the cooperatives in the hinterlands. The rural economy couldn’t absorb these entities either. And for a hard core of these veterans — the 10 percent or so who threatened, assaulted, even ‘taxed’ other participants — nine years after the peace, if you ask them what their job is, they say “GAM.”

Reintegration worked for GAM elites; the province is theirs. Corruption is pervasive, and contracts are a currency in themselves. Reintegration has not worked at the grassroots; many ex-GAM members are still committing crimes for lack of other opportunities. Every potential investment is viewed as extortable by select veterans and provincial officials, from the governor’s office to the smallest hamlet. This underscores why Aceh often only manages to attract “enclave investments” involving natural resource extraction: metals, timber, palm oil, with profits leaving the province rather than being reinvested. These opportunities provide next-to-nothing for local people, and this was one of the core grievances articulated by GAM to justify its rebellion.

For those who are content to extort, there’s no law to stop them. This is the key paradox: reintegration only works with the simultaneous re-establishment of law enforcement. But GAM’s successors couldn’t allow for adequate policing of their rank-and-file because it interferes with the income streams of the people they need support from, and they can’t provide alternatives.

Governor Abdullah and the Aceh Regional Investment Coordinating Board’s solution to the lack of rule of law and contract enforceability that inhibits investment in Aceh is to re-brand the province as a tourist destination, and through this, they hope to attract Rp 5 trillion ($435 million) in investment in financial year 2014. At the same time, tourists choosing to wear beach attire could theoretically be caned.

The provincial government needs investment to provide opportunity as well as alternatives to crime. But it can’t attract investment without establishing the rule of law. Aceh’s current rulers want the former and need the latter. But they can’t have both, so instead of making hard policy decisions to attract and protect the investments that Aceh needs, they simply pretend. The due diligence performed by any potential investor would quickly uncover these false claims. And so trust — the key ingredient in any investment — is violated, before it even begins.

Bobby Anderson works on health, education and governance projects in Eastern Indonesia. Contact him at rubashov@yahoo.com.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/aceh-open-business/

The Leuser Ecosystem--and all protected forests in Aceh-- are still under seige, and worse than ever

Our new best friend and favorite journalist, Michael Bachelard has just published the first of two long articles that he wrote after his trip to Aceh last month.  He had also visited the province to write about the political, social and security climate there pre-legislative elections; we posted that article in early April.  I’ve been following his work on deforestation in Aceh for over two years; he’s simply the best reporter of exactly how and why this tragedy is allowed to continue, even after national forest protection orders, civil lawsuits, death and fear and impoverishment of the communities who’ve lived for generations in the area  surrounding the rain forest.  JMD was fortunate enough to meet Michael on his recent visit and travel with him to see the cocoa production project that JMD has been assisting. The article below was published in both the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age; you should go to the Age’s website because it includes a short video that MIchael took. In 5 minutes you can witness the horror that is happening just a few kilometers from where JMD is trying to help women farmers rebuild the economy of their communities in the wake of the 30-year civil conflict.  It sure looks like a (new) losing battle.

Aceh's Leuser Ecosystem pays a high price for the peace dividend

Michael Bachelard May 03, 2014  

Heavy machinery makes new terraces for oil palm trees in freshly cleared forest inside the Leuser Ecosystem. Local activists say this clearing is illegal. Photo: Michael Bachelard

Kuala Simpang, Aceh: On the map, the Leuser Ecosystem is shaped like a gigantic pair of lungs. The image is apt. This 2.6 million hectare expanse of tropical forest that spans Aceh and North Sumatra in Indonesia is one of the largest remaining oxygen factories in a country that’s become infamous for slashing and burning its trees. 

Environmental activists such as Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program’s Dr Ian Singleton calls Leuser ''Asia’s last great wilderness'', the only place in the world where orangutans, rhinoceroses, elephants and tigers still roam free together. It’s that way partly because, for well over a decade, the forest provided refuge to GAM separatist rebels fighting a guerilla war against Jakarta.

Since peace was reached in 2005, though, separatist sentiment has turned against the trees. Leuser has come under serious pressure from palm oil barons, illegal loggers and mining companies and the former rebels who now run Aceh’s provincial government have given a green light to development in the name of economic independence and political strength. On the ground, the clearing has begun.

Matsum has lived in and around the Leuser area his entire life and, since 2006, has worked to preserve it. In the past year or so, he says the task has become increasingly fraught.

''We want to protect the forest but the companies just want to make big business,'' Matsum says. ''Now suddenly there is so much activity inside the forest.''

About two hours drive up a dirt road from the south-eastern Aceh town of Kuala Simpang, a hand-painted sign is hammered into the ground by the road. It purports to prevent anyone from entering land owned by the palm oil company PT Mustika Prima Lestari Indah. We are lucky, though, on a sleepy public holiday, that the lone guard makes no attempt to stop us entering.

Inside, almost every tree has been freshly stripped from the rolling hills and valleys. The few remaining sentinels, kempas trees, are scorched by fire. In the distance, heavy machines are gouging terraces into the hillsides in preparation for the young oil palm seedlings to be planted.

According to Matsum, this land is supposed to be protected forest. The clearing is therefore illegal. He says he has complained to the local government but nothing was done. In fact, the Bupati (the head of the local government), Hamdan Sati, tried to convince him that the area was a ''community plantation''.

''The community doesn’t own this,'' Matsum insists. ''A big company owns it and the community will just be paid to clear it.''

Perhaps it does not help that the Bupati himself owns a palm oil company, PT Mapoli Raya, and his business partner is the head of the local Oil Palm Growers’ Association,  which helped him get elected.

''Community development'' is how the Aceh government refers to its opening up of the forests, but evidence from this area suggests that, here at least, it’s a cover for the same old, bad practices.

In nearby Kaloy village, the community knows that the new development will not benefit them. Village woman Asiyah says people who work in the plantations are paid about $29 per week: ''not even enough for our daily lives''.

In the coffee house, Chaeruddin Ambe tells the long history of plantation owners obtaining title over their land.

Developers, ''Chinese [Indonesian] people from Medan'', first came in 1995 with the police and local military to ''negotiate'' with the villagers for land, promising  that 10 per cent of its area would be set aside for local people. The company ''would be like our foster parent'', they said.

But when a permit for 538 hectares was issued, there was no land for locals. The company even had four men arrested as they tried to tap their own rubber trees. 

Soon, though, the separatist war and the presence of rebels meant ''everyone was afraid to go in there'', and development stopped, Chaeruddin says.

After the 2004 tsunami and the 2005 peace deal was signed in Helsinki, the concession had magically expanded to 2496 hectares: ''We don’t know how that happened''.

In the immediate post-tsunami period, though, the forest gained another reprieve. Aceh elected as governor a former GAM combatant called Irwandi Yusuf, who took advice from international environmental NGOs and promoted the radical notion of green growth.

The Leuser Ecosystem includes the Gunung Leuser national park and hundreds of thousands of hectares of surrounding areas and, in 2007, the entire area was given protection under national government laws. Some production forest concessions exist within its boundaries, but Irwandi vowed to protect it all from development.

He appointed rangers and created a government authority, BPKEL, to oversee it. Deara Putra, 22,  was a park ranger and he spent 15 to 20 days each month living in the forest and watching for illegal loggers. He caught plenty too, he says.

Matsum, who now works for local environmental group the Hakka Foundation, said in those times 24 plantations in the area were operating illegally, and 18 of them were taken to court. Other plantation owners gave up their acreage to avoid being taken to court. Some illegally cleared areas were even regenerated as forest.

But Governor Irwandi’s model of green growth lasted only as long as he lasted in power. The 2012 governor’s election saw Zaini Abdullah, the leader of a different faction of former GAM rebels, elected as governor. His party, Partei Aceh, dominated parliamentary elections too.

After Zaini’s election, BPKEL was disbanded, the Leuser Ecosystem’s buffer zone literally wiped from the map, and the bulk of the rangers sacked. It did not take long for the bulldozers to start up again. 

In Kaloy village, the long-delayed palm oil concession was activated and the clearing and planting began. Already the young oil palm trees are sucking up water at the rate of about 8 litres per tree per day, and the river level is dropping.

''Where should our grandchildren find water?'' worries Asiyah. ''When I was younger, the water was quite deep, now it’s quite shallow.'' 

Others have also recently come looking for land. One old man, Nanang, from a neighbouring village, says a mining exploration helicopter piloted by an Australian spent a week taking off and landing from the field in front of his house, flying forays over the forest.

A nearby hill, covered in lush forest is being targeted for its dolomite lime, an ingredient in cement.

In the midst of this, Aceh has drawn up a new spatial plan. But because the Leuser Ecosystem was removed, Aceh’s plan was rejected earlier this year by the central government in Jakarta. The local parliament, though, has ignored Jakarta’s ruling and enacted its plan regardless, reactivating long dormant logging and palm oil concessions.

Politically, meanwhile, the argument over the spatial plan and development in general is one of several issues (including the design of the provincial flag)  which is provoking once again the separatist sentiments that once saw Aceh at war with Jakarta.

Many in Aceh believe the Helsinki accord allowed them complete autonomy over natural resources, and that Jakarta is blocking its implementation.

''We have been colonised and our natural resources taken away from us,'' says Maimun Ramli, convenor of Partei Aceh’s 2014 election campaign and head of the Monitoring Group for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement in Aceh.

''If (true self-government) is not granted, we will take up arms again.''

The head of the Aceh development planning board, Abubakar Karim says ''of course'' Aceh should have more control over its natural resources.

''But we don’t want big rich people to benefit,'' says the man who helped design the spatial plan. ''What we want is to make the Aceh people prosperous … by giving people back their land.''

Abubakar insists his government is about ''community development'', and blames Jakarta, not the provincial government in Banda Aceh for the large-scale clearing that’s under way.

As for abolishing the Leuser Ecosystem, he says the idea of a land buffer was ''about outsiders trying to manage Aceh’s forests, especially the NGOs and the central government''.

If Jakarta is a dirty word in Aceh now, in the coffee shops of Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe, where former combatants gather to talk, admitting to being from an international NGO is like uttering a profanity.

Abubakar says environmentalists are outsiders only interested in ''shouting and protesting'' about Aceh’s forests as a means of raising funds from donors.

For Matsum, whose lonely work in a local NGO in Leuser is supported by foreign donors, it makes for an uphill battle. 

''I continue to advocate, but since BPKEL was disbanded and the rangers lost their jobs, we basically find that we are powerless.''

See the video:

The Price of Palm Oil

Michael Bachelard journeys into the world of palm oil plantations in Aceh, where land is taken to grow the sought-after product, whatever the cost.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/acehs-leuser-ecosystem-pays-a-high-price-for-the-peace-dividend-20140501-zr1qh.html

Prabowo Subianto: the warm and fuzzy war criminal

Some friends were wondering recently if Prabowo Subianto, Gerindra party candidate for President, recently had the charges dropped against him for human rights violations.  I said I hoped it wasn’t true, since the world community was pretty much in agreement that he is basically a war criminal.  But I did a little digging just to make sure.  Imagine my disgust when I found out that no formal charges have ever been filed against him, and that the US, while fervently hoping he doesn’t win, is backpedaling like mad, and promises that if he does win, the State Department “would re-establish direct contacts with [him], and will not pursue allegations of human rights abuses.”

Why does the US place sanctions and boycotts on other countries whose leaders commit genocide?

Would we be cozying up to Hitler if he’d won?

Dark days ahead, my friends. 

Indonesia Candidate Tied to Human Rights Abuses Stirs Unease

By JOE COCHRANE (The New York Times)   MARCH 26, 2014

Here he is at a rally last Sunday.  That horse is worth more than JMD’s Aceh cocoa farmers make in a year.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander, kicked off his party’s campaign for legislative elections with a rally last weekend that the local news media characterized as “military style.” He rode into a Jakarta stadium in a jeep to greet the party faithful, mounted a horse to circle the grounds and paraded before uniformed party cadres standing at attention.

Despite widespread allegations that he took part in some of Indonesia’s worst human rights abuses during his time as a military officer, Mr. Prabowo — who has announced his candidacy for president — is not playing down his military credentials in a country that many see as craving a strong leader.

But Mr. Prabowo’s candidacy has raised deep concerns among rights activists in Indonesia and abroad. They note that the country’s human rights commission recommended that he be prosecuted in the alleged abductions of pro-democracy activists in the late 1990s, during the final months of the military-backed government of President Suharto, his father-in-law at the time.

Mr. Prabowo’s attempt to become the country’s second directly elected president has also put the Obama administration in a difficult position.

Mr. Prabowo, who graduated from American military training programs in the 1980s and is an admirer of the United States, has for years made it clear that he would like to meet with high-level American officials. So far, the United States has demurred.

“The sensitivity comes from the extremely close association between the U.S. and Indonesian militaries during the atrocities the Indonesian military committed,” said Jeffrey Winters, a professor of political science at Northwestern University, adding that the administration appears to be banking on Mr. Prabowo’s losing or on patching up any bruised feelings if he wins.

“Indonesia is far too strategically important to the U.S. to have frosty relations between the countries,” Mr. Winters said. It not only has strong economic and security ties to the United States, it also has the world’s largest Muslim population.

For the moment, Mr. Prabowo, of the Great Indonesia Movement Party, has been polling behind Joko Widodo, the popular governor of Jakarta who has made his name as a squeaky-clean leader who tackles popular issues like education and Jakarta’s chronic traffic. But the presidential election is still months away — in July, after next month’s legislative election — and the charismatic Mr. Prabowo, 62, has many ardent supporters at the grass-roots level, as well as among powerful businessmen and retired military commanders.

Allegations against Mr. Prabowo extend back to his early career, when he was a young officer in the 1980s in East Timor, where an armed movement was fighting Indonesian occupation. Some human rights groups called for an investigation over allegations that he ordered the massacre of nearly 300 civilians. Mr. Prabowo has vehemently denied being on the scene of the massacre or having any involvement in it.

Later accusations center on his time as one of Indonesia’s most powerful military men under Mr. Suharto. Human rights groups say Mr. Prabowo, then a three-star general, was responsible for the abduction and torture of 23 pro-democracy activists in 1997 and 1998, and for orchestrating riots in May 1998 — just days before Mr. Suharto resigned as president — that resulted in more than 1,000 deaths and the rapes of at least 168 women.

A government-appointed fact-finding team established by Mr. Suharto’s successor reported that Mr. Prabowo had met in his office with military, government and political figures during the riots. That stoked speculation that they had plotted to use the crisis as a way for Mr. Prabowo to take over the crumbling government in a coup. Mr. Prabowo denies any such plot and, in a recent interview, said he could have “taken over if I wanted to.”

A member of the fact-finding team, Marzuki Darusman, said, “To be fair, it’s all circumstantial, and it’s still unresolved.”

In 2006, the National Commission on Human Rights released a report saying 11 people, including Mr. Prabowo, should be prosecuted in the activists’ abductions. The attorney general’s office, which has shied away from most investigations of Suharto-era abuses, declined that request.

The abductions case did end Mr. Prabowo’s military career. He was discharged in August 1998 for “exceeding orders” by arresting the activists, some of whom, according to Mr. Prabowo, had bomb-making equipment. While he accepted responsibility as a senior officer for the torture of nine of the activists, he has said he did not order it and has denied any knowledge about the disappearances of the other 14.

“The main thing about Prabowo is, he’s never been investigated, let alone prosecuted, for the long list of things he’s been linked to,” said Matthew Easton, a former program director for Human Rights First, an organization based in the United States. “His actual command responsibility needs to be investigated.”

Mr. Prabowo argues that he has been made a scapegoat for the abuses committed by the military during Mr. Suharto’s 32 years in power.

“I’ve never been indicted for anything; it’s always innuendos, always allegations,” he said, speaking fluent English in the recent interview. “My critics always say I am a threat to democracy, blah, blah, blah. I believe in democracy and in human rights.”

The United States — which had worried about Indonesia’s stability amid American fears of Communist takeovers in Southeast Asia — had supported Mr. Suharto, but appeared to begin to distance itself from him and figures like Mr. Prabowo after Mr. Suharto lost power.

The State Department denied Mr. Prabowo a visa in 2000 to attend his son’s university graduation in Boston, although it has never explained why. And as Mr. Prabowo’s political career took off over the last six years, successive American ambassadors have given him a wide berth even as other foreign diplomats have met with him and as his brother, a prominent businessman, made several trips to Washington to appeal for opening a dialogue.

Lower-level United States officials have met with members of Mr. Prabowo’s circle, though not with him, according to one of his party’s officials.

A State Department spokeswoman recently appeared to suggest that Mr. Prabowo was not being singled out, saying the United States ambassador, Robert O. Blake, “has no plans to meet with declared candidates.” And at a recent gathering organized by the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club, Mr. Blake said, “Whoever is elected, we will gladly work with.”

But the decision not to meet with Mr. Prabowo before the election stands in contrast to the American approach in India, where the ambassador broke nine years of American estrangement with Narendra Modi, whose party is leading in polls, by holding a publicized meeting with him in February. The State Department had revoked Mr. Modi’s visa in 2005 over his alleged role in sectarian violence in Gujarat.

Political analysts say generational change and Mr. Prabowo’s charm help explain why he is considered a strong candidate. Many of the tens of millions of young Indonesian voters do not remember much about the Suharto days, while many older voters contend that army commanders were just trying to keep the fractious archipelago intact.

Mr. Prabowo also has won fans in business, in part for his decisiveness. After he spoke at a gathering last year with Indonesian business leaders and Jakarta-based American executives, “half of them wanted to vote for him right there, even the foreigners who can’t vote,” said one American who attended.

As for the chances of a falling-out with Indonesia if Mr. Prabowo wins, analysts say that is unlikely. They note that Mr. Prabowo remains an American supporter despite the cold shoulder. Barry Desker, a former Singaporean ambassador to Indonesia, said he expected the United States to exercise the same pragmatism it has in India if Mr. Prabowo emerged as the front-runner.

“The State Department would re-establish direct contacts with Prabowo,” Mr. Desker predicted, “and will not pursue allegations of human rights abuses.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/world/asia/indonesia-candidate-tied-to-human-rights-abuses-stirs-unease.html?_r=0