Bombs galore

A 66-pound World War II aerial bomb killed 13 people and injured 8 when it exploded near Morotai Island in North Maluku. Fishermen found the bomb and brought it ashore. In similar past explosions, villagers have attempted to cut through bomb casings to get at the explosives inside. Allied bombers heavily attacked shipping lanes around the Maluku archipelago, which had been occupied by the Japanese imperial army in 1942, in the closing stages of the war. In May 1999 another WWII bomb exploded near Galela on Halmahera Island, killing four.

Meanwhile Papua police chief SY Wenas said thousands of unexploded WWII bombs still litter the seas and forests around Biak in Papua (Irian Jaya). Biak was a major Allied base during the war. Fishermen who use them to bomb reefs trade them for Rp 10-20,000 (AU$2-4) or sometimes just a packet of cigarettes or a can of beer, he said.
Associated Press 3 February 2000; Kompas 18 April 2000

Heroes galore

The streets of Jakarta will soon be enlivened with the statues of many national heroes, the city's parks and beautification director Syafril Zainuddin said. Jalan Jenderal Sudirman, for example, will have a 7-metre statue of the famous revolutionary fighter, standing on a 4-metre base. Other streets named after heroes will also have giant statues - Jalan MH Thamrin, Jalan Diponegoro and Jalan Imam Bonjol. Companies whose names are inscribed on a plaque will sponsor each statue. Building the statues was a matter of urgency, Mr Syafril said, because the younger generation was in danger of losing their sense of appreciation of the national heroes.
Kompas 18 February 2000

Kissinger's friends

President Gus Dur has taken on the world's best-known political fixer, Henry Kissinger, once dubbed 'Dr Death' by US students protesting his prosecution of the Vietnam War, as his personal advisor. Through his eponymous consultancy, Kissinger Associates, the wily doctor has for fifteen years conscientiously served the interests of around 20 leading US companies, and a select band of European and Asian corporations. These include AIG - America's biggest private insurance underwriter and provider of commercial political risk insurance for industrial projects (like Freeport-Rio Tinto's Grasberg mine in Papua); ABB, one of the world's largest engineering contractors for controversial hydro dams; and Union Carbide, the company which killed and disabled thousands of inhabitants of the Indian city of Bhopal. Also a Freeport board member, in 1991 Kissinger flew into Jakarta with 'Jim Bob' Moffett to sign the contract which would allow Freeport to expand Grasberg into the biggest and most destructive mine on earth.
Nostromo Research 7 March 2000

'Pope' dies

HB Jassin, the 'Pope of Indonesian literature', died on 11 March 2000 aged 83. He was given a full state funeral and buried in the Heroes Cemetry in Jakarta. Jassin was born in Gorontalo in 1917 and started writing in the 1940s. He became a noted translator, and was working on the Arabian Thousand and One Nights, among several other books, when he died. Playwright Ratna Sarumpaet spoke warmly about his translation of the Al-Quran, which others considered controversial. Poet and journalist Goenawan Mohamad said: 'HB Jassin's love for Indonesian literature was incomparable, especially in the persistent and impressive way he collected literary works'. The HB Jassin Literary Documentation Centre was opened at the Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts Centre, Central Jakarta, in 1976 to house his vast personal collection of Indonesian literature. Jassin always 'encouraged the ideas that humanise humans,' Ratna said.
Jakarta Post 12 March 2000

The hand

72-year old Mrs Sumiasi thought she had been sent some food by a relative, but when she opened the parcel at her Jakarta home she found a human right hand in a medical glove. A doctor at the Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital suspects the hand belongs to Hendrik, a man who had been shot dead by police a few days earlier while robbing a woman. Hendrik's hand was found missing during an autopsy. The hospital morgue was being repaired and corpses were stored in an unlocked room for the time being. 'Anyone could come in at night and cut off someone's hand', said a hospital spokesperson. 'We can't do anything about it, it's the way things are'. Asked if she had any enemies who might want to frighten her, Mrs Sumiasi said no, but she suspected it had something to do with a real estate company who had been pressing her for years to sell her land to them cheaply.
Suara Pembaruan 11 April 2000

Treasure islands

A quiet rush is on for gold bars and seventeenth century Ming porcelain on the seafloor around Ternate and Tidore in North Maluku. This was once the heart of the Spice Islands, and Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and Chinese sailing ships called here and sometimes sank. The rush started after Australian explorer Michael Hatcher turned up here in February 1999. In 1986 Hatcher had made tens of millions of dollars from treasures recovered from the wreck of the Geldermalsen he found near Riau. The Indonesian government was angered by this blatant theft from Indonesian waters and banned him from entering Indonesia again. But he was back the following year, working with various Indonesian businessmen. Japanese researcher Yoichi Oshima says the Tidore explorers have 'official' backing, but they are acting irresponsibly with their discoveries. At least 15,000 pieces of Chinese porcelain have disappeared, also from a government depot. Meanwhile a Japanese company with genuine authorisation from the archeological service is being waylaid, he said.
Media Indonesia 25 April 2000, Tajuk 8 June 1999

Having a ball

'Taking shabu (crystal methamphetamine) was normal for quite a few players - perhaps up to 60 percent of them', said a footballer (who preferred to remain anonymous) about the use of performance-enhancing drugs during a recent round of the Liga Indonesia V soccer tournament. If they were playing in the late afternoon they would take the drug just after lunch, so they would be hyperactive by the time the game started, he said. In early April two top soccer players, Eri Irianto from Surabaya and Kuncoro from Makassar, died suddenly after a game. Their deaths are thought to be drug-related. Trainers claimed in interviews the problem was not serious. The soccer league PSSI has belatedly formed an anti-doping team to tackle drug abuse in the sport.
Kompas 27 April 2000