ICG's Southeast Asia Director Sidney Jones and Analyst Francesca Lawe-Davies were yesterday ordered to leave Indonesia "immediately". Immigration department officials of the Jakarta provincial government delivered the order to ICG's office at 6 pm on 1 June (11:00 GMT). The letter made no specific charges against Jones and Lawe-Davies but stated that they were in violation of immigration laws.
The order follows public statements by National Intelligence Agency head, General Hendropriyono, that ICG's reports were "not all true" and "damage the country's image".
ICG's President, former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, said "the expulsion order is outrageous and indefensible, utterly at odds with Indonesia's claim to be an open and democratic society, and is bound to damage Indonesia's reputation far more than ICG's".
Since establishing its Jakarta office in 2000, ICG has published 37 reports and briefing papers on conflict related issues, including Aceh, Papua, the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist movement, communal violence and the transition from military to civilian rule. The reports and analyses, all publicly available in both English and Bahasa Indonesia on ICG's website www.icg.org , have been widely praised inside and outside Indonesia.
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http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?id=2791&l=1&m=1There's a 17 May report on Indonesia: Violence Erupts Again in Ambon
The city of Ambon, in Maluku (Moluccas), which had been relatively quiet for two years, erupted in violence on 25 April 2004 after a small group of independence supporters held a ceremony commemorating the 54th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of the South Moluccas (Republik Maluku Selatan, RMS).
As of 5 May, the death toll had reached 38, about two-thirds of whom were Muslim. The fact that many were killed by sniper fire has led to a widespread belief that the violence was provoked. Two churches, a Muslim high school, the office of UN humanitarian agencies, and hundreds of homes were set on fire. Close to 10,000 people have been displaced from their homes, adding to the some 20,000 displaced during earlier phases of the conflict who remain unable to return to their original dwellings. Until 5 May, the deaths and arson had been confined to Ambon city; religious and community leaders had kept many previously hard-hit communities elsewhere on the island and in the central Moluccan archipelago from exploding, a tribute to the reconciliation efforts over the last two years. But that day, gunmen killed two people on Buru island, and there have subsequently been isolated outbreaks elsewhere, although the city itself has returned to a tense calm. The longer it takes to uncover the perpetrators of this latest round of violence, the greater the danger of a new eruption.
The response of the Indonesian government at both local and national levels has been poor, from the short-sightedness of the police to the unhelpful portrayal of the violence in some quarters as Christian independence supporters against Muslim defenders of national unity. That said, the violence has been largely contained. What is needed now is a thorough, impartial, professional, and transparent investigation into the causes.
But as the Jakarta Post editorialised on 6 May, events in Ambon may be part of a larger political game. The question as the 5 July presidential elections approach is whether anyone benefits by making trouble there. As usual, conspiracy theorists have been hard at work, and as usual, hard evidence is in extremely short supply.
http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?id=2754&l=1(full pdf report
http://www.crisisweb.org//library/documents/asia/indonesia/040517_indonesia_violence_erupts_again_in_ambon.pdf )
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