-------------------------------------------------------------------- IBRAHIM ISA'S --- SELECTED INDONESIAN NEWS & VIEWS, 14 FEB. 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------- GOVT TURNS TO IMPORTS ONCE AGAIN TO KEEP RICE BOWLS FULL WORLD BANK COUNTRY DIRECTOR IN INDONESI ATO BE REPLACED DON'T JUST BLAME IT ON THE RAIN LAVISH LASHES, NEGLECTED WARTS; A JAKARTA FABLE -------------------------------------------------------------------- GOVT TURNS TO IMPORTS ONCE AGAIN TO KEEP RICE BOWLS FULL JAKARTA (JP): The government will import another 500,000 tons of rice to help keep prices from rising further after monsoonal flooding across the country disrupted the production and distribution of the nation's staple foodstuff. The rice will be imported in March and April, Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters Tuesday after a meeting with economics ministers at the headquarters of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog). The Vice President said bids from suppliers had alreadybeen solicited. "We need to secure the supply of rice to the market and distribute as much rice to the poor as is needed. That's why importing rice is reasonable in these circumstances," he said.The government imported 500,000 tons of rice in January, saying that it would import more over the course of the year as required.A total of 138,000 tons of imported rice will be delivered this month, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Boediono had earlier said, with another 350,000 tons arriving in March so as to buffer the country's rice stocks until such time as localproduction kicks in during the harvest. The original decision to import rice came after prices rose to Rp 5,000 (55 U.S. cents) a kilogram in December and January, threatening a possible uptick in inflation.(Urip) WORLD BANK COUNTRY DIRECTOR IN INDONESIA TO BE REPALCED JAKARTA (Antara): World Bank country director in Indonesia, Adrew Steer, will soon be replaced because he will be given a new post in London, England. "I will leave Indonesia for London on Feb. 28 to work for the British government. I will remain in the World Bank but I have to be responsible to the British government," Steer said on the sidelines of a conference on public spending on Monday.Steer said having been World Bank country director in Indonesia since 2002, he had seen the country make a lot of economic progress from time to time."I have to leave Indonesia for London but I don't know who will replace me," Steer said. He said Indonesia would continue to face new challenges in the years to come but they would lead the country to greater success. "The government at present is in a financially strong position and this is very good for Indonesia. Therefore, with the new challenges, I am certain the country will make a lot of progress in the future," he said.(***)
DON'T JUST BLAME IT ON THE RAIN Irma Hutabarat, Jakarta Here we go again. The city had five years to prepare, but it still failed to stop massive floods from swamping the capital. The disaster has caused an estimated Rp 4.1 trillion in material losses, claimed the lives of at least 48 Jakartans and forced 320,000 people to flee their houses.Portions of Jakarta were paralyzed -- except for the fingers of government officials, who quickly began to point the blame toward each other, Mother Nature and the media. This series of events remind me of a song from the infamous 1980s lipsync band, Milli Vanilli: Blame it on the Rain. It seemed everybody was chanting the once-popular refrain and deflecting responsibility for the flood, probably the worst ever to have struck Jakarta and its neighboring towns. Let's start with the person who is supposed to be responsible for the wellbeing of Jakarta, Governor Sutiyoso. He said the flood was a natural phenomenon which was beyond his capacity. But what about all those buildings that have been erected without proper permits or planning? What about those green areas that he allowed to become shopping malls or skyscrapers? Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie accused the media of dramatizing the floods. "The victims are still laughing," he claimed. What about the estimated 190,000 suffering from diarrhea, respiratory problems and skin diseases? What about all those who lost their belongings? Are these plights not dramatic enough? If Aburizal says the sad facts are exaggerated by the media, can we assume that he has ensured every victim receives proper assistance and medical treatment? Even though the government failed to anticipate the flood, Vice President Jusuf Kalla assured there will be no floods next year. No doubt he knows there is a five-year cycle. If floods hit Jakarta next year anyway, perhaps we can ask Kalla to pay compensation for his false promises and also ask him to take action against those deemed responsible for the disaster. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised that the East Canal construction project would be completed and city planning would be improved. He speaks quite a lot in "future tense" and imperative statements, but will the promises ever materialize? The worst scapegoating came when government officials blamed squatters who had been living on the riverbanks for "destroying the environment". They are easy victims in the blame game due to their so-called illegal status -- even though they have ID cards and access to electricity, water and phone lines, and even though they participated in the elections. Former Philippine president Corazon Aquino once promised to serve only one term in order to ensure a peaceful transition and bring deposed president Ferdinand Marcos to justice. She fulfilled her promise. It's quite rare, if not unknown, in this country for public officials keep their own promises. Many politicians and parties spend a lot of money and words to lure voters ahead of an election, but break their promises as soon as they win their seats of power. Another quality our leaders lack is good service and commitment. An American fast-food chain sets a good example through its boast: "If your order doesn't come in five minutes, you'll get a free drink." Customers have formed long lines expecting to exceed the five-minute limit. But it has never happened. Why? Because the company knows its capabilities. A company I worked for adopted a similar commitment to customers. We would not ask clients to pay if we missed the deadline. This kind of commitment boosted employees' attitudes and spirit. What about our leaders? Do we see them share that attitude and spirit? We haven't heard them set out their goals for dealing with floods. Thus we can't measure progress toward the goals. We never know whether there are any carrots or sticks for government officials depending on that progress. Only if government lives up to universally accepted standards can we pin our hopes on officials to prevent floods and other disasters. We can't blame it on the rain anymore. The writer is a non-governmental organization activist. LAVISH LASHES, NEGLECTED WARTS: A JAKARTA FABLE Julia Suryakusuma, The Jakarta Post My friend Miranti has truly luscious eyelashes. I complimented her on them, and she said, "They're extensions, Julia." "Really?" I said in surprise. I had heard of hair extensions -- but lashes? I had already tried some products to grow long and lush lashes. The ads claimed they were used by Hollywood actresses. They were expensive, but the results were far from dramatic. Miranti's lash extensions, however, were fabulous. Being as vain as the next woman, I had to have these lashes, and that leads to confession No. 1: I had extensions put on at a salon near home, fake individual lashes glued to my existing ones. As you can imagine, it's a laborious, painstaking exercise, but finally, the beautician held up a mirror. Lo and behold: fashion disaster! The lashes were far too long. I looked like Miss Piggy from the Muppet Show! I wailed my disappointment, and she said "Sorry bu, we ran out of short ones". "But I look absurd," I said, "the lashes go right up to my eyebrows!" "Okay," she said, "We'll snip them down to size." But they're supposed to taper at the ends. If you cut them off, they become stiff like brooms. What to do? You can't exactly unglue them. I just had to live with them until they fell off naturally. And three months later they did -- taking my own lashes with them. All I had left were stubs. I looked like a potato! Call me Spud Suryakusuma! I vowed I'd never tamper with my lashes again, and using a tip I found in a natural beauty book, I applied castor oil every night. In a few weeks, they were back to normal. Phew! That's it, I thought, from now on I'll stick to curling tongs and mascara. And now confession No. 2. Last year, a wart developed on my hand, near my thumb. My husband, Tim, said I should get it burned off. "No," I said, "I'll just use natural methods, because that's what I believe in -- and I'll save money". My mother swore by slaked lime, saying it had worked like magic on my father. Not on me, however. Then I got various suggestions from my housemaid and my driver: inserting a fish bone into the wart (so that when it rots, the wart comes off), battery acid, and other weird methods. I tried them all. But the wart grew bigger and harder, like a miniature alien living off my hand, and after a year of the War on the Wart, I gave up. I went to a dermatologist and got it cauterized. The wound healed eventually, but it left scar tissue on my hand. It'll fade with time (like when I'm 90!), but in the meantime, I have a longstanding reminder of my foolishness and inability to get my priorities right. Yes, I was willing to pay a large amount of money for fake lashes -- a non-essential, vanity product that damaged me -- but not on the wart, a health matter that, unattended, became quite serious. And I ended up paying a lot more for my wart problem than if I'd had a doctor deal with it at the start. I learned a painful lesson, but then I thought, I'm not unique in getting my priorities wrong, and letting my vanity get the better of me, am I? Our leaders do it all the time. Founding president Sukarno, for example, spent "lashings" of money on a string of expensive and prestige projects: the National Monument, the Bung Karno sports stadium (one of the biggest in the world, with a capacity of 100,000 seats), the Semanggi clover-leaf interchange, the Sarinah Department Store and building a six-lane road on Jl. Thamrin. He did all this while the economy was in near-total chaos, with inflation at 650 percent, the rupiah hugely devalued, prices of basic commodities exorbitant and his people unemployed and starving. As they found out, economies take much longer to grow back than eyelashes! Sadly little has changed in present-day Jakarta. Current "lash" projects include the continuing beautification of major roads; colored fairy lights and plants and flowers, using up electricity and water; the endless building of shopping malls and plazas (currently 100, with plans for 70-100 more) all increasing congestion and encouraging mindless consumerism for the wealthy; the traffic-clogging busway; plans to build a monorail and even a subway. (Hello!!? With Jakarta's annual floods, they'd have to hand out aqualungs with every ticket!) Then there are Jakarta's "warts": small problems left to grow into monsters. The floods are the obvious example, as they seem to get worse every year but nothing ever gets done about it. And there's the continuing traffic congestion, pollution, garbage and other less obvious "warts" like the lack of affordable housing, an unmanaged informal sector, uncontrolled urbanization, bad sanitation, lack of access to healthcare and education, to mention just a few -- all unattended, and getting bigger and bigger all the time. During Sutiyoso's two terms as governor a construction boom has reduced the city's green space, leading to floods in the rainy season and water crises during the dry season. More parks and water catchments should be built, but instead we get malls and skyscrapers, because building permits raise money for corrupt officials. But it can't really all be blamed just on Sutiyoso. Why? Because -- warts and all -- we love Jakarta's bright city lights and flock to its glistening malls and shops crammed with goodies. We turn a blind eye to Jakarta's problems, and that makes each of us as guilty as anyone else for the mess our soggy city is now in. The writer is the author of Sex, Power and Nation. She can be contacted at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * *
