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Tag: Joko Widodo

  • Indonesia Government Does Not Want Singapore To Claim Credit For Combating Haze, Rejected Earlier Offers

    Indonesia Government Does Not Want Singapore To Claim Credit For Combating Haze, Rejected Earlier Offers

    JAKARTA — Indonesian Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung said that Jakarta had earlier rejected Singapore’s offers of assistance to combat the transboundary haze crisis in the region because it was concerned that the city state would claim credit for solving the problem, even while the officials were worried about the rapidly deteriorating situation.

    “The (Indonesian) government is not closing ourselves off to assistance. But if we are assisted, the government does not want them (Singapore) to claim the credit. It is the government that is working hard to resolve (this smog disaster) … So we do not want it to reach the point of them claiming credit for it,” Mr Anung told CNN Indonesia yesterday (Oct 7).

    According to Indonesian media reports, President Joko Widodo held an unscheduled closed-door meeting yesterday to discuss the haze problem, which has worsened this week.

    Jakarta today asked for help from Singapore, Russia, Malaysia and Japan to put out forest fires that have caused choking smoke to drift across South-east Asia, after having turned down several offers of foreign assistance from other countries, particularly Singapore and Malaysia, which have also been affected by haze since the crisis began last month.

    Minister of Forestry and Environment Siti Nurbaya Bakar said yesterday that the government had opened up to the possibility of accepting international assistance as the situation was getting worse.

    Dr Siti Nurbaya explained that as the fires spread and difficulty of putting them out increased, Indonesia would need support from abroad to provide equipment that is capable of providing water capacity and stronger volume pressure. “It seems that there is a need to receive support whether from Singapore, Russia, Austria, and others,” said the minister at the Presidential Palace Complex yesterday. She added that water bombing and artificial rain would be the most effective and in this regard, Indonesia required more aircraft at its disposal

    This was despite Dr Siti Nurbaya stating earlier that Indonesia did not require any assistance from Singapore as it has more than enough aircraft.

    Mr Anung stressed yesterday that while the government had not yet decided to declare the smog that is blanketing Sumatra and Kalimantan as a national disaster, it was very concerned about the problem. He said Mr Widodo was actively monitoring the situation, especially through social media, including direct view content uploaded by the community.

    “Earlier we showed this (information from social media) to the President. The President knows everything, because we want the President to get information that is as complete as possible to the events that happened,” the Cabinet Secretary highlighted.

    Mr Widodo planned to go to a number of areas affected by the haze but he has not been able to do so as the air quality and visibility worsened.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Jusuf Kalla: Indonesia Open To Help From Any Country, Including Singapore

    Jusuf Kalla: Indonesia Open To Help From Any Country, Including Singapore

    JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is open to help from any country, including Singapore, if they wish to assist in fighting the forest fires that are causing the haze in the region, Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla said yesterday (Sept 27).

    Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York, Mr Kalla said the Indonesian government has noted Singapore’s protests against the haze.

    “Please come, we are open. Singapore can see for itself. Singapore, please come if you want to help. Don’t just talk,” local news agency Antara News quoted Mr Kalla as saying.

    Mr Kalla said Indonesia has explained that it is working hard to put out the forest fires, but it is difficult to solve the problem within a short period of time.

    “The forest fires in Indonesia are helped by the dry weather and winds,” he said.

    This is not the first time Mr Kalla is inviting Singapore to help. On Sept 15, he appealed to Singapore through local media to help fight the fires, and was quoted as saying: “Singapore, please come. Singapore also knows that the natural disaster can happen anywhere.”

    The Singapore Armed Forces had offered to send C-130s for cloud seeding and Chinooks to carry large water buckets to douse the fires.

    However, Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar has declined Singapore’s assistance, and said that her country is trying to handle the crisis on its own. Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi also said that she has spoken with her Singaporean counterpart to explain the steps that Jakarta has taken.

    “Indonesia is very serious about resolving the fires, and this will be complemented with law enforcement and education,” said Ms Retno.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Indonesia Prepared To Return Australia Tsunami Aid

    Indonesia Prepared To Return Australia Tsunami Aid

    Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Monday that Indonesia was prepared to return the $1 billion in aid that Australia provided following the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.

    The comments were in response to a reminder from Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who last week mentioned the relief when making a plea for two Australian drug traffickers on death row in Indonesia.

    “I have explained that we understood during the tsunami, there was humanitarian aid from 56 countries, including from Australia,” Kalla said on Monday. “If it was not considered humanitarian aid, we will return it.”

    Abbot’s comments have struck a raw nerve with many Indonesians, and in some major cities protests and theatrical coin collections have started.

    Twitter and Facebook have been flooded with messages under the hashtag #CoinsFor Australia — a campaign to repay Australia and a demand its neighbor respect Indonesia’s legal system.

    Since making the comments, Abbot has claimed they were not a threat but instead the aid referred to the strength of the two countries’ bilateral relations.

    Kalla said he had been communicating with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and he had explained that the execution of Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan — ringleaders of the so-called Bali Nine heroin trafficking group — was not a decision made solely by President Joko Widodo.

    “She appreciated the explanation. She understands Indonesian law and I have told her it wasn’t the president who decided on the death penalty but an independent and objective court,” Kalla said.

    Sukumaran, 33, and Chan, 31, were caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Bali in 2005. They are among the next group of inmates to be executed by a firing squad.

     

    Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com

  • Brazil And Netherlands Recall Ambassadors From Indonesia As Their Citizens

    Brazil And Netherlands Recall Ambassadors From Indonesia As Their Citizens

    Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Indonesia and expressed fury Sunday after Jakarta defied their pleas and executed two of their citizens along with four other drug offenders.

    The other convicts to face a firing squad were from Vietnam, Malawi, Nigeria and Indonesia. The six were the first people executed under new President Joko Widodo.

    Indonesia has tough anti-drugs laws and Widodo, who took office in October, has disappointed rights activists by voicing support for capital punishment despite his image as a reformist.

    He defended the executions, saying drugs ruin lives.

    A spokesman for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she was “distressed and outraged” after Indonesia ignored her last-ditch pleas and put to death Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, who was convicted of smuggling cocaine into Indonesia in 2004.

    “Using the death penalty, which is increasingly rejected by the international community, seriously affects relations between our countries,” the spokesman said in a statement.

    The Brazilian ambassador to Jakarta was being recalled for consultations, the spokesman added.

    Meanwhile Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said the Netherlands had also recalled its ambassador over the execution of Dutchman Ang Kiem Soei, and in a statement described all six deaths as “terribly sad”.

    “My heart goes out to their families, for whom this marks a dramatic end to years of uncertainty,” Koenders said. “The Netherlands remains opposed to the death penalty.”

    Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte had been in contact with the Indonesian president about the matter, he said, and the government had done “all in its power” to try to halt the execution.

    – In line with law –

    Widodo on Sunday defended the death penalty in a Facebook post.

    “The war against the drug mafia should not be half-hearted measures, because drugs have really ruined the good life of the drug users and their families,” he said.

    “There is no happiness in life to be gained from drug abuse. The country must be present and fight with drug syndicates head-on,” he added.

    “A healthy Indonesia is Indonesia without drugs.”

    All the prisoners, who had been sentenced to death between 2000 and 2011, were executed shortly after midnight, the attorney general’s office said.

    The 53-year-old Brazilian, who was caught with drugs stashed in the frame of his paraglider at Jakarta airport, and the 62-year-old Dutchman were executed on Nusakambangan Island, home to a high-security prison, off the main island of Java.

    A Nigerian, Daniel Enemuo; Namaona Denis, from Malawi; and an Indonesian woman, Rani Andriani, were executed at the same location.

    The sixth convict, Vietnamese woman Tran Thi Bich Hanh, was executed in the Boyolali district in central Java.

    They were all caught attempting to smuggle narcotics apart from the Dutchman, who was sentenced to death for operating a huge factory producing the drug ecstasy.

    All had their appeals to the president for clemency rejected last month.

    Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said Hanoi had asked Indonesia “to ensure Vietnamese citizens’ legal rights and consider reducing their sentences in a humanitarian way” since Hanh’s arrest in 2011. But it was unclear whether they had asked for her sentence to be commuted.

    Vietnam also uses the death penalty for drug offences and has sentenced dozens of foreigners over such crimes, although it has been decades since a foreign national was executed in the communist country.

    Jakarta had an unofficial moratorium on executions for several years from 2008 but resumed capital punishment again in 2013. There were no executions last year.

    Widodo, known by his nickname Jokowi, has taken a particularly hard line towards people on death row for narcotics offences, insisting they will not receive a presidential pardon since Indonesia is facing an “emergency” over drug use.

    Following Sunday’s executions, the number of people on death row for drugs-related offences stood at 60, around half of whom are foreigners, said a spokesman for the national narcotics agency.

    Widodo’s tough stance has sparked concern for other foreigners sentenced to death, particularly two Australians who were part of the “Bali Nine” group caught trying to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia in 2005.

    One of the pair, Myuran Sukumaran, also had his clemency appeal rejected last month but authorities say he will be executed with fellow Australian Andrew Chan as they committed their crime together.

    Chan is still awaiting the outcome of his clemency appeal.

    Also on death row is British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford. She was sentenced to death in 2013 after being caught trying to smuggle cocaine into Bali.

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

  • Malaysian Fishing Vessel Bombed By Indonesian Police

    Malaysian Fishing Vessel Bombed By Indonesian Police

    KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian-registered fishing vessel which allegedly conducted illegal fishing activities was bombed by Indonesian authorities yesterday.

    According to Indonesian news agency Jakarta Post, the trawler was sunk by the republic’s police in North Sumatra for illegal fishing off Pandan Islet recently.

    The agency quoted North Sumatra police chief Inspector General Eko Hadi who said the sinking of the ship, which features registration number PKFA 7738, was approved by the Indonesian court.

    “After getting approval from the district court head, we used dynamite to destroy and sink the ship,” he was quoted as saying.

    The trawler was destroyed in Belawan waters. It was the first time that the North Sumatra police had sunk a foreign vessel for fishing illegally.

    However, the news report did not state the fate of the vessel’s crew members.

    Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo had last year instructed the republic’s authorities to take stern action against foreign fishing vessels which are found fishing illegally in their waters.

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com