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Deputy Governor Prijanto on Monday said residents should improve on the city’s security situation, in response to falling numbers of overseas visitors arriving in the capital this year.

“The level of security and safety in Jakarta affects the tourism sector,” he said at City Hall.

Prijanto expressed concerns about the declining figure, following demonstrations against the fuel price hike in May, which led to violent clashes and a car-burning.

“There are various causes for the decrease, but I believe the major reason was the student demonstrations that involved the burning of a car,” he said.

“One week after the riot, I received a lot of complaints from business sectors, including travel agencies. They said they suffered losses because many people canceled their travel plans to the capital.”

The Jakarta Statistics Agency reported the number of overseas visitors coming to Jakarta through Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Halim Perdanakusumah Airport and Tanjung Priok Port in June was 126,063 visitors — a drop of 2.1 percent from the 128,772 visitors in May.

The hotel room occupancy rate in May was 55.2 percent, less than the 56.41 percent recorded in April, the agency added.

Agency head Djamal said this was the first time a decline was recorded in the past five years. He said Jakarta’s security and safety levels were the main factors drawing tourists to the city.

“Not only did travel agencies suffer, but hotels and other tourism-related sectors were also affected by the decline,” Prijanto said.

Jakarta is promoting itself as a center for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions. The city administration is also seeking to boost visitor numbers by revitalizing the Old Town areas in West and North Jakarta.

Even though monthly visitor figures are on the decline, year-on-year data shows the number of overseas tourists and hotel room occupancy rate experienced increases of 21.53 percent and 1.46 percent respectively.

The number of overseas visitors to Indonesia is up by 3.85 percent, from 432,041 in May to 448,679 in June.

The government is trying to promote tourism in the country through its “Visit Indonesia Year” campaign. The tourism ministry said it expected seven million visitors to the country in 2008, an increase of 26.3 percent for the previous year.

Tifa Asrianti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

AN OFFER by a notorious Jakarta gangster to develop the site of a refugee camp in Dili has been accepted by the East Timor Government.

The East Timorese-born man, Hercules Rozario Marcal, has close links to Soeharto-era generals in Indonesia, including one charged by the United Nations with orchestrating the destruction of East Timor after the 1999 independence ballot.

The Timor Post has confirmed that Hercules has been given the go-ahead to build a mini-mart and swimming pool on the site opposite Dili’s main wharf.

Investigators have established that Hercules had contact with, and may have met, the rebel leader Alfredo Reinado days before he led the February 11 attacks on the President, Jose Ramos Horta, and the Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao.

Reinado’s mobile telephone had a listing for “Hercul”.

Two rebels involved in the attacks were arrested at Hercules’s Jakarta residence in April.

Hercules has denied any involvement in the attacks.

He gained notoriety in Jakarta in the 1990s running protection rackets.

His gang also served as enforcers for the Soeharto regime, intimidating dissidents and East Timorese independence activists. His military patrons were reputed to include the then general Parbowo Subianto, Soeharto’s son-in-law.

At one stage he lived in the house of Major-General Zacky Anwar Makarim, indicted by a UN war crimes tribunal in 2003 for crimes against humanity.

Hercules told East Timorese journalists in January he was looking at investing in hotels and real estate in East Timor.

Jakarta - Hundreds of white-clad Indonesian Muslims rallied Monday outside the presidential palace in Jakarta, demanding the government immediately outlaw a minority Islamic sect branded by the country’s top clerics as ‘heretical.’

Organized by the Islamic Forum of Ummat (FUI) - a broad coalition of fundamentalist Islamic groups in Indonesia - the protestors chanted slogans, shouted ‘Allahu Akbar,’ (’God is Great’) and unfurling banners denouncing the Ahmadiyah sect.

‘It’s time now to disband Ahmadiyah,’ said a huge banner unfurled by activists from Muslim hardline group the Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI), known for its frequent vandalism, including attacks on bars and nightclubs during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, accused by Western countries of being the spiritual leader of the regional al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, told the crowd that the sect posed a danger.

‘Ahmadiyah is the enemy of Islam. They are the infidels that have been trying to destroy Islam, not using violence but through their deviant principles,’ shouted Ba’asyir, as hundreds of anti-riot police stood guard, backed by a water cannon.

Ba’asyir insisted that the Ahmadiyah sect ‘must be dissolved.’

A brief scuffle took place between police officers and protestors when the protestors tried to force their way inside the presidential palace’s compound, witnesses said.

A similar protest call to outlaw the Ahmadiyah sect took place in the East Java capital of Surabaya, the latest in a series of rallies, demanding the minority sect be banned.

Islamic fundamentalists and some Muslim leaders have branded the Ahmadiyah sect, which leaders claim has about 500,000 followers in Indonesia, ‘deviant’ and ‘blasphemous’ because it disputes the central Islamic concept that Mohammed was the final prophet.

Over the past several months violence against followers of Ahmadiyah has increased in Indonesia, where several Ahmadiyah mosques have been attacked or burned.

In a bid to pacify the militants, the government on June 9 issued a decree ordering the minority sect’s followers to stop spreading its teachings and return to mainstream Islam or face five years imprisonment and the disbanding of the group.

A week before the restriction was issued, a crowd of moderate Muslims and interfaith leaders was attacked by fanatic activists during a march for religious tolerance in the capital Jakarta, injuring dozens.

Human rights groups and civil liberty activists denounced the government decree, arguing it was a violation of the country’s constitution and encouraged Ahmadiyah to file a judicial review.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group said the decree ‘increases the likelihood of religious vigilantism,’ since government officials urged the public to act as a ‘watchdog’ to ensure the decree is enforced.

Mainstream Muslims reject Ahmadiyah’s claim of the prophethood of its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908 in India. Most Muslims believe Mohammed was the last of the prophets.

Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Muslim population with nearly 88 per cent of its 225 million people embracing the faith. The country has a long history of religious tolerance.

Jakarta - The death toll from bird flu in Indonesia has risen to 112 after a 19-year-old man died from the virus last week, a health ministry official said on Monday.

Contagious Diseases section chief section I Nyoman Kandun confirmed that the man had died in hospital in the Jakarta satellite city of Tangerang.

He said 112 people had died in Indonesia, the country worst-hit by the virus, out of 137 positive cases.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari earlier in 2007 closed a 24-hour information centre on bird flu outbreaks and stopped providing regular updates of the death toll, saying it was unnecessary.

Experts fear that the virus, which is usually spread directly from a bird to a human, could mutate into a form easily transmissible between people, sparking a deadly global pandemic.

from www.iol.co.za

By Andreas D. Arditya, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

State Minister for National Development Planning Paskah Suzetta has been implicated for the second time in as many weeks in the alleged misappropriation of Rp 100 billion (US$10.9 million) of Bank Indonesia funds.

Former BI deputy governor Aulia Pohan claimed he heard from defendant Rusli Simanjuntak, former BI communications head, that Paskah held a meeting with then BI governor Burhanuddin Abdullah and Rusli in 2005.

“There were several important things Rusli failed to inform me about, such as a meeting between Burhanuddin and Paskah, which was also attended by Rusli, Lukifatul and Lukman Benyamin at Le Meridien Hotel in Jakarta,” Aulia said in his testimony.

Aulia, whose daughter is married to the son of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was responding to a question by prosecutor Agus Salim if he had anything else to disclose.

The panel of judges, however, refused to pursue the statement, saying it should come from Rusli himself.

Aulia said Rusli told him about the meeting when Aulia visited him at the Mobile Brigade detention center in Depok in early March 2008. No clarification was given on when exactly the meeting took place and for what purposes.

Last week, Golkar Party legislator Hamka Yandhu testified before the same court that he gave fellow legislators Paskah and Malam Sambat Ka’ban Rp 1 billion and Rp 300 million each from the allegedly misappropriated BI funds in 2003. Ka’ban is the current forestry minister.

Both Paskah and Ka’ban were summoned by the President on Monday to clarify Hamka’s allegations.

In his testimony, Aulia said members of the BI board of governors ordered the disbursement of the funds to a public relations committee.

Aulia admitted to ordering Rusli to disburse the money to members of the House of Representatives’ Commission IX (which oversees financial affairs) in 2003.

“I ordered Rusli to do it because it had been decided earlier on by the board of governors,” Aulia said.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) alleges the BI board of governors agreed in a June 3, 2003, meeting to disburse the money to House Commission IX to resolve the BI liquidity support (BLBI) case and the amendment of the BI law, and to five former BI officials who were implicated in the BLBI corruption case to obtain legal assistance.

Burhanuddin, Rusli and former BI legal affairs deputy Oey Hoey Tiong are standing trial for the case. Aulia and three other former BI deputy governors — Maman Soemantri, Bun Bunan Hutapea and Aslim Tadjuddin — are also implicated in the case.

Aulia insisted the purpose of the disbursement was to promote BI’s image in the public, with help from the legislators. The promotion was considered necessary in 2003 after the Supreme Audit Agency gave the bank’s 2002 financial report a disclaimer status.

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