Source/Credit: The Jakarta Globe
By Nivell Rayda | December 27, 2010
With disasters both natural and man-made, scandals political and otherwise, as well as threats defeated and new ones emerging, no one can say 2010 has been dull.
As the year comes to a close, we look back at the people and events that grabbed the headlines over the past 12 months.
The Gayus Affair
Gayus Tambunan probably never imagined he would become a household name. But when your name comes to symbolize the extent of corruption, greed and injustice in the country, it’s easy to see how it could become the one that’s on everyone’s lips.
As a government employee in charge of appeals at the Taxation Tribunal, the mid-ranking official is accused of having illegally amassed an estimated wealth of more than Rp 100 billion ($11 million) of taxpayers’ money.
“Gayus must have set some kind of record for greed and corruption,” Taxation Tribunal chief Tjip Ismail said back in August.
The taxman’s acquittal on embezzlement charges in March slipped under the radar, but sprang to the national fore when then National Police’s chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji, claimed that law enforcers, including two of his subordinates, had been bribed to ensure his acquittal.
Gayus later admitted he had paid out Rp 5 billion in bribes to police, prosecutors and judges involved in the case. The sheer extent of institutional corruption that his case exposed prompted the president to form the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force, which vowed to use Gayus’s case as an entry point for reforming the country’s law enforcement agencies.
However, the serious reforms inside the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office envisioned by the president’s task force has failed to materialize. Companies known to have paid bribes to Gayus to lower their taxes also remain untouched.
Furthermore, Susno, the whistle-blower, later found himself behind bars charged with two counts of corruption.
Disastrous October
Indonesia is no stranger to natural disasters, but the trio of calamities that struck the country in October again showed up the country’s lax disaster preparedness and poorly coordinated disaster response efforts.
More than 150 people were confirmed dead, with hundreds more missing, in a flash flood that devastated the West Papua town of Wasior on Oct. 4.
Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan blamed massive deforestation in the surrounding upstream areas, while the coordinating minister for people’s welfare, Agung Laksono, said only days later that the flood was caused by unusually heavy rainfall.
On Oct. 25, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck the Mentawai Islands off West Sumatra, triggering a tsunami that claimed more than 500 lives. The government issued a tsunami warning that was lifted just minutes later. It was only after communication was restored in the affected islands the following morning that the country learned of the tsunami.
Relief efforts were hampered by rough seas and the remoteness of the affected villages, with most only accessible by sea. Some remote fishing communities didn’t receive aid until almost two weeks after the catastrophe.
Less than 24 hours after the tsunami, Mount Merapi in Central Java began spewing heat clouds and lava in what turned out to be its most destructive eruptive phase in more than a century. At least 320 people were killed and tens of thousands were forced to evacuate from Merapi’s slopes.
Striking Back Against Terror
As with disasters, the country is no stranger to terrorism. Threats of violence continued in 2010 with the discovery of a terrorist network training for the radically new prospect of frontal armed assaults.
In February, police raided the group’s training camp in Aceh, followed by a series of nationwide raids to capture those linked to the camp, including its suspected leader, Abu Tholut.
Police in May also found indications that the Aceh cell may have been financed by firebrand Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who has already been linked to several high-profile terrorist plots. Bashir was arrested on Aug. 10 and is now awaiting trial.
Several days after Bashir’s arrest, a gang of armed men robbed a bank in Medan, killing a policeman and fleeing with Rp 400 million. Police linked the bank heist to the terror cell.
A month later, a group of men believed to be connected to the robbery stormed a police station on the outskirts of Medan, killing three officers.
The discovery of the Aceh training camp prompted the formation of an independent anti-terror body in June, to assist the police’s Densus 88 squad and ease the military back into the counterterrorism campaign.
Unity in Diversity Under Threat
Throughout the year, the country’s motto, “Unity in Diversity,” appears to have been increasingly forgotten as a series of attacks against religious minorities dominated headlines.
Many claimed the root of the problem lay in the 1965 Blasphemy Law, which they said legitimized human rights violations against minorities. Religious tolerance groups moved to have the law repealed, but the motion was rejected by the Constitutional Court in April. The government’s argument that the law was meant to protect religious freedom and not inhibit it was soon tested.
From June, a series of attacks began on members of the Ahmadiyah Islamic sect in and around Jakarta, including the firebombing of an Ahmadiyah mosque in the capital and the destruction of a mosque and homes belonging to sect members in Bogor.
An Ahmadiyah community in West Nusa Tenggara was also attacked in November and forced to leave their village.
Christians have fared little better. Since March, members of the Batak Christian Congregation (HKBP) in Bekasi have been forced to pray on the streets or in an empty lot after the government sealed off their church over zoning violations.
In September, a church elder was stabbed and a female priest assaulted by members of the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).
This month, another HKBP congregation in Bandung was driven out of the home they worshipped in by a mob of hard-line Muslims.
Gas Canister Disasters
Journalists this year faced the daunting task of keeping track of explosions involving the infamous subsidized three-kilogram gas canisters, which seemed to occur nearly every day all over the country.
Spearheaded by then Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the government launched a program to introduce gas stoves to every household in the country in a bid to replace the use of kerosene, which is more heavily subsidized than gas and had put a strain on the economy.
But faulty regulators and containers, as well as mishandling and negligence by retailers attempting to illicitly siphon gas from the three-kilogram canisters to the unsubsidized 12-kilogram ones, caused dozens of explosions, killing and injuring many people, as well as destroying property.
Concerned by the growing number of explosions, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered a probe in July. A month prior to ordering the probe, the palace refused to grant access to a mother demanding to see the head of state. Both she and her son were badly disfigured in a gas canister explosion.
Police cracked down on illegal retailers and distributors, and new hoses and regulators were distributed. But there was never a full recall of the faulty canisters.
Fearing for their lives, some residents reportedly discarded the gas canisters in favor of firewood or kerosene.
Bank Century Saga Continued
The saga that began with the government decision to bail out the former Bank Century in 2008 continued this year, with the House of Representatives voting in March that the bailout was illegal.
Before the House had even launched a probe in January, lawmakers from the Golkar Party were already calling for the resignation of Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Vice President Boediono, the two people they deemed ultimately responsible for the bailout.
Lawmakers spent the next three months debating the banking violations committed by Century’s owners that led to its teetering on the brink of collapse, as well as the legitimacy of the Rp 6.7 trillion bailout.
But even after the House had finally pronounced the bailout illegal, law enforcement agencies failed to find legal faults with it, although the bank’s owners were later convicted of embezzling customers’ money and stashing it in offshore accounts.
Sri Mulyani said Golkar chairman and tycoon Aburizal Bakrie was using the probe as part of his personal vendetta against her for her firm stance against graft — several companies linked to Bakrie were under investigation over tax-related offenses at the time.
In May, it became apparent that it was all a political game, when Sri Mulyani resigned to become managing director of the World Bank and Golkar gave up pushing for an investigation into the bailout.
‘Peterporn’
In June, the nation went into a frenzy over a sex video on the Internet purportedly featuring 28-year-old Nazril “Ariel” Irham, the lead singer of pop band Peterpan, with his girlfriend, actress Luna Maya, as well as another video of the singer with model and actress Cut Tari.
Conservative Islamists were incensed, calling for all three to be prosecuted and for Ariel and Luna to be forced to marry. The police quickly acquiesced by arresting Ariel, but for weeks were at a loss trying to decide what to charge him with.
They finally resorted to charging him with distributing pornography, despite his insistence that the movies were made for private viewing and had been stolen from his computer.
Of the two women, the police deemed only the married Cut Tari a victim in the case — after her tearful public confession that yes, it was her in the video, and yes, she had committed a grave sin.
That appeared to save her marriage with businessman Yusuf Subrata, although she was asked to resign from hosting a television gossip show. Luna was also dropped from her music TV show and also lost several lucrative advertising contracts.
How Tifatul Stole Obama’s Show
It was supposed to be a historic occasion — the president of the United States visiting Jakarta, the city he’d lived in as a boy — but as it turned out, the president was upstaged by Communications and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring.
President Barack Obama’s visit was hailed as a landmark event. It coincided with the restoration of defense ties and included the signing of a bilateral cooperation agreement, all of which the communications minister managed to overshadow through a rather vigorous handshake with the first lady, Michelle Obama, in a widely televised event.
Several of his followers on Twitter questioned the handshake, calling Tifatul, a very conservative Muslim by his own account, “a hypocrite” for touching a woman to whom he was not related. Tifatul claimed that the first lady had held her hand so close to him that he had no choice but to take it reluctantly.
But the footage says otherwise, showing Tifatul leaning forward for the shake before Michelle Obama had proffered her hand, and smiling all the while.
The incident quickly made headlines around the world and was the subject of a sketch by comedian Stephen Colbert on his satirical news show, “The Colbert Report.” A YouTube version of the sketch notched up millions of hits in a matter of hours.
Lawmakers Too Busy Traveling
The so-called overseas comparative studies by members of the House of Representatives have been fodder for criticism year after year. This year, however, it became even more apparent that the expenses of these far outweighed any results.
The House only passed 16 of the 70 bills it targeted for completion by the end of this year. Meanwhile, lawmakers have embarked on 19 overseas trips to 14 different countries since being inaugurated a little over a year ago.
The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra) said lawmakers had been allocated Rp 122 billion for such jaunts in the 2010 state budget, a 30 percent increase from 2009.
Critics argued that the information they gathered was widely available online or in libraries in universities across Indonesia.
The trips were also criticized for their timing. Members of the House Ethics Council visited Greece in October, when Indonesia was reeling from a string of devastating natural disasters that had killed hundreds.
Critics were also skeptical that the comparative studies would contribute anything to the deliberation of proposed bills.
Bitter Relations With Malaysia
Indonesia’s ties with Malaysia have had their ups and downs over the years, dating back to the time of the country’s first president, Sukarno, who protested the establishment of then Malaya in 1961, calling it “a puppet country of the British empire.”
This year, the ill-treatment of Indonesian migrant workers by their Malaysian employers, as well as border spats and Malaysian claims to Indonesian cultural heritage such as batik, served to fan the flames.
Of particular concern was the media-hyped tit-for-tat arrests of three Indonesian maritime officers by a Malaysian naval patrol, following the arrests of Malaysian fishermen by the Indonesian coast guard.
That incident caused widespread anger across Indonesia, with daily protests in front of the Malaysian Embassy culminating in demonstrators hurling human feces at the building.
All of the detainees were eventually released.
A survey last week by the Indonesian Survey Circle showed that 59.2 percent of respondents in 100 villages across Indonesia disliked Malaysia, higher than the 46.4 percent who harbored negative views of the United States.
That sentiment is not likely to be assuaged by the ongoing Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup final, which Malaysia leads 3-0 going into Wednesday’s second leg in Jakarta.
Year in
Review
Read original post here: 2010 Review: A Year of Natural and Political Disasters
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