Lake Sentani plans festival to bridge gap

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 02/01/2010 10:52 AM | National
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Want to know how Papuan “female divers” smoke while diving, or how to call a crocodile out of a river by whistling, or any of the other unique local wisdom of the Sentani people?

Then don’t miss the Lake Sentani Festival, Jayapura Regent Habel Melkias Suwae says.

Delivering his address at the opening of a Sentani photo exhibition here Friday, Habel said the festival, the third such festival since 2008, would be held from July 19 to 23 this year, and was
targeting not only to attract more foreign and domestic tourists to the regency, but also to improve ties between Papua and Indonesia’s other provinces and peoples.

“Ethnically we are different. You are part of the Melayu ethnicity, but we are Melanesian. However,
we are one in Indonesia. This festival is really a means to introduce Papuan people and our culture to you. We need to get to know each other better to strengthen our big national family and to build
mutual trust,” said Habel, wearing a Batik shirt.

The exhibition displayed hundreds of shots taken by freelance photographer Toni Sri, depicting the cultures and daily lives of 24 Papuan ethnic groups living around the lake. The exhibition was aimed to attract Jakartans to visit Papua during the upcoming festival. “Two eyes are not enough
to see and shoot the richness of Papuan culture and its beautiful panorama.”

Freelance writer Anto Dwiastoro also launched Doors to the Unknown: The story of Sentani in the Papuan regency of Jayapura, a book with photos, covering Papuan culture, environment and historical sites around Lake Sentani.

While the Lake Sentani Festival had cost Habel a lot to organize, he said he was proud of it and many other Papuan festivals.

The funding was peanuts in comparison to the cultural value and “political benefit” it had for the whole nation, he said.

“In 2008, the first festival attracted only around 2,000 foreign and domestic tourists, but the second brought in around 5,000. With the third we hope to see up to 10,000, because of the numerous pre-festival events both at home and overseas.”

Habel, a former elementary school teacher and local Golkar Party chairman, said that unlike other festivals, the Lake Sentani Festival would present guests with dance performances, local customs and antiques, as well as sightseeing tours to historical sites and a tourist village near the lake.

“We have prepared 1,500 dancers from 24 villages around the lake... while villagers have been prepared to accommodate guests in their own homes to show our sincere hospitality,” he said.

Festival promotions manager Mian Simanjuntak said his team was working to promote the festival through hotel associations and airlines, both at home and abroad, at cultural events in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Europe and the US.

The Gaza massacre and global amnesia

Donny Syofyan, Padang | Fri, 06/04/2010 11:22 AM | Opinion
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Again and again, Israel violated international law as it had shown off its flagrant aggression upon humanitarian aid boats in the past few days. Israeli commandos boarded the flotilla about 80 miles from Gaza’s coast, part of international waters.

Citizens of the world have been on the streets, opposing furiously and urging retaliation against the intentional massacre. Many international figures and organizations, such as United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, EU president Herman van Rompuy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the UN Security Council, have called for a broad and fair investigation.

Unfortunately, US President Barack Obama simply came up with mild response, sorrow for the loss of lives on one side and expressing the importance of immediately learning all the facts and circumstances around the tragic events.

The Palestinian issue is a never-ending humanitarian catastrophe. There seems to be a tendency that it is no longer typically a Muslim concern, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic

Conference. Rather, Palestinian calamity turns into the world’s concern regardless of religion and nation.

As for the flotilla, this is evident seen from various volunteers and passengers on board, including Swedish author Henning Mankell and the Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire to mention just a few.

However, following long US support on Israel through its veto power in the UN for more than fifty years, the Palestinian issue has been and is always being neglected by the world. Indeed, it is subject to global amnesia at least for two reasons.

First, the Palestinian issue failed to establish global solidarity of Muslim countries, especially Arab countries. Arab governments have no great leader capable of unifying trivial splits among themselves, like what Gamal Abdel Nasser achieved during Arab-Israeli War in 1967.

This is not to mention that Muslim organizations such the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference are more like toothless tigers.

Waves of demonstrations in Arab countries and around the world now are more organized and carried out by Islamic or Muslim and human right organizations for fundraising. At the government level, Arab countries are only busy in condemning only, or publicly known as “NATO” (No Action Talk Only). They must go beyond their traditional stands, such as imposing economic embargoes on Israel and urging Egypt to open its border with Gaza Strip to channel humanitarian aid.

Second, the Palestinian issue is always associated with blaming the victims, not the aggressor. The humanitarian aid, including the six-boat flotilla, is necessary for Gaza because Gazans received nothing from the months of ceasefire. There was no restoration of a dignified existence. A couple of days before the flotilla tragedy, the UN Refugee Works Relief Agency’s (UNWRA) operations head for Palestinian refugees, John Ging, expressed that supplies were already restricted to the point where Palestinians were left in a very vulnerable and precarious position with very little food left.

It is ironic that humanitarian aid from the international community for starving Gazans are regarded by the Israeli government as delegitimizing its existence and endorsing terrorist, that is to say, Hamas.

Does it make sense that supplying the hungry Gazans means helping terrorists? Why is Hamas named a terrorist organization while it was democratically elected? How can we be in favor of Israel’s actions spurning Palestinians by dividing Gaza and the West Bank, co-opting Mamoud Abbas, inciting Fatah against Hamas, isolating Gaza, and pursuing a policy of aggression, killing, targeted assassination, mass incarceration, and torture with full support from Washington and the West?

Israel is a serial aggressor. Hamas responds in self-defense as international law allows. Article 51 of the UN Charter permits the “right of an individual or collective self-defense [against an armed attack] until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security”.

Any attempt to stop Israel’s aggression is a must, not only to shape peace in the Middle East but also to pave the way for friendly relations between Islam and the West. Scapegoating Palestinians as victims and supporting Israel in an unconditional manner is nothing more than celebrating the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacre and the dispossession of more people from their land.

At last, the failure to figure out the Gaza tragedy on a fair footing will make dreams of global solidarity and integrity in the future even more unknown, unheard or unheeded.

The writer is a lecturer at Andalas University, Padang. He graduated from the University of Canberra, Australia.

Will Indonesia allow expats to own houses? Maybe after uphill battle, says VP

Andi Haswidi, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua | Mon, 05/31/2010 9:25 AM | Headlines
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At an international property industry gathering in Bali last week, Indonesia was presented as an emerging market with great potential and growing demand for development in the real, residential and commercial property sectors.

Indonesia is doing what it can to open its real estate market to foreign ownership, Vice President Boediono said to delegates from more than 60 countries at the opening of the 61 world congress of the International Real Estate Federation (Fiabci).

However, it will be an uphill battle, he added.

Foreign ownership of property is impossible under Indonesian law. Non-nationals can now rent real estate for 25 years and may extend leases two subsequent times, for 20-and 25- year periods respectively.

Investors may lose the value of their investment over long-period leases, and many foreigners complain about corrupt offi cials and Indonesian bureaucracy when processing lease extensions.

Public Housing Minister Suharso Monoarfa said the bureaucratic issue stemmed from the regional governments’ narrow perspective on ways to generate government revenue from the property market.

A permit goes through layers of approvals, which makes the process subject to abuse by corrupt offi cials, he said.

Suharso said the central government was attempting to raise awareness among governors and regents of generating real estate revenues and regional economic growth through more creative ways, such as simplifying procedures and providing clear city planning.

Regional governments should also be open to foreign ownership, which will result from Indonesia’s
agrarian reform program, he added.

“This is the era of globalization. People move freely across the globe. Limiting foreign ownership is no longer the right approach,” Suharso said.

He said that opening Indonesia to foreign ownership would generate investment between US$3 billion
and $6 billion per year.

The government is drafting a regulation that will partially open the market to foreign investment in
certain types of real estate, such as luxury apartments and high-value properties.

The proposed regulations will permit foreigners to initially lease real estate for up to 70 years, instead
of extending the lease two additional times.

However other countries in the region allow foreigners to lease land for up to 90 years.

The government’s draft regulation will face a huge stumbling block because it must adhere to the agrarian and foreign investment laws, legislator Ganjar Pranowo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) told The Jakarta Post in a telephone interview.

“The government tried a similar approach to manage investment by foreign corporations in 2008. They tried to simplify the land-use extension, but [the effort] was rejected by the Constitutional Court,” he said.

Ganjar said that the House of Representatives did not oppose foreign investment in the property market, but investment must be in-line with the national interest, which is defined by multiple parties.