Monday, January 28, 2008
Indonesia-politics-Suharto-opponents,lead-REAX
For opponents, Suharto's death does not dull anger
by Nabiha Shahab
JAKARTA, Jan 27, 2008 (AFP) - The death Sunday of Indonesia's autocratic former president Suharto has not dulled the anger of his political opponents, who see his demise as a missed opportunity to bring him to justice.
For them, including many who were thrown into prison for dissent, time has failed to heal the wounds of Suharto's three decades of repressive rule.
"His death is a tragedy for all the victims of his crimes, they will never get justice," said Budiman Sudjatmiko, who was jailed as a student under the Suharto regime and now works for the People's Democratic Party of Struggle.
The 86-year-old former president, who stepped down in 1998, was accused of many crimes -- among them, the mass killing of over half a million suspected communists in 1965-66.
He and his family also left a legacy of massive corruption, bleeding up to 35 billion dollars out of the Indonesian economy, according to the anti-graft watchdog Transparency International.
As head of the army's Kostrad elite forces, Suharto led a campaign against the then-powerful Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and suspected sympathisers shortly after a failed 1965 coup attempt blamed on communists.
The ensuing violence across the country is acknowledged -- mostly outside Indonesia -- as one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century.
"This is the mother of all crimes against humanity. Suharto was never held accountable, he was even praised as a hero," Sudjatmiko said.
"Count in his corruption then he is a perfect criminal -- he can be put up there with Pol Pot and Hitler."
Sudjatmiko lamented Suharto's passing as a second lost opportunity, saying he could also have been brought to trial in the reform era that followed his resignation in 1998.
Carmel Budiardjo, the British-based founder of Tapol, an organisation which advocates human rights in Indonesia, described Suharto's demise as "the death of a tyrant."
"The political elite don't see the need for justice," Budiardjo told AFP.
But, she added, "there are people who will feel like I feel, that he died without facing justice. I only hope the obituaries will highlight what he did during his reign."
Budiardjo, a British citizen, said she was locked up for three years from 1968 in a women's prison in Bukit Duri, Jakarta, because of her connection to an academic discussion group.
Under Suharto, intellectuals were frequently jailed after being accused of links to the PKI.
Fadjroel Rachman, who heads a non-governmental organisation called Suharto Inc. Busters that worked to bring him to trial for graft, followed up his own expressions of condolences to Suharto's family with a call that "legal action against his cronies, families and loyalists should continue."
Rachman, who was jailed for defamation as a student during Suharto's rule, cited the 1975 invasion of East Timor and military crimes during the bloody separatist war in Aceh province as abuses for which victims of his regime are still seeking justice.
Investigative journalist and activist Andreas Harsono vividly remembers as a teenager watching the president's military police shoot a young boy in the street in a bid to reduce petty crime.
"He did not hesitate to take the law into his own hands to solve the problem. The question is: did he solve the problem? Of course not," Harsono said.
Harsono said as a journalist he experienced first hand the suppression of the media by Suharto's regime.
"In the future people will praise him, people will call him the 'father of development', people will deny that he was even involved in fascist activities, in killings and suppressing our freedoms, because he has never been tried," Harsono said.
nhs/bs/str/aub/pst
For opponents, Suharto's death does not dull anger
by Nabiha Shahab
JAKARTA, Jan 27, 2008 (AFP) - The death Sunday of Indonesia's autocratic former president Suharto has not dulled the anger of his political opponents, who see his demise as a missed opportunity to bring him to justice.
For them, including many who were thrown into prison for dissent, time has failed to heal the wounds of Suharto's three decades of repressive rule.
"His death is a tragedy for all the victims of his crimes, they will never get justice," said Budiman Sudjatmiko, who was jailed as a student under the Suharto regime and now works for the People's Democratic Party of Struggle.
The 86-year-old former president, who stepped down in 1998, was accused of many crimes -- among them, the mass killing of over half a million suspected communists in 1965-66.
He and his family also left a legacy of massive corruption, bleeding up to 35 billion dollars out of the Indonesian economy, according to the anti-graft watchdog Transparency International.
As head of the army's Kostrad elite forces, Suharto led a campaign against the then-powerful Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and suspected sympathisers shortly after a failed 1965 coup attempt blamed on communists.
The ensuing violence across the country is acknowledged -- mostly outside Indonesia -- as one of the worst mass killings of the 20th century.
"This is the mother of all crimes against humanity. Suharto was never held accountable, he was even praised as a hero," Sudjatmiko said.
"Count in his corruption then he is a perfect criminal -- he can be put up there with Pol Pot and Hitler."
Sudjatmiko lamented Suharto's passing as a second lost opportunity, saying he could also have been brought to trial in the reform era that followed his resignation in 1998.
Carmel Budiardjo, the British-based founder of Tapol, an organisation which advocates human rights in Indonesia, described Suharto's demise as "the death of a tyrant."
"The political elite don't see the need for justice," Budiardjo told AFP.
But, she added, "there are people who will feel like I feel, that he died without facing justice. I only hope the obituaries will highlight what he did during his reign."
Budiardjo, a British citizen, said she was locked up for three years from 1968 in a women's prison in Bukit Duri, Jakarta, because of her connection to an academic discussion group.
Under Suharto, intellectuals were frequently jailed after being accused of links to the PKI.
Fadjroel Rachman, who heads a non-governmental organisation called Suharto Inc. Busters that worked to bring him to trial for graft, followed up his own expressions of condolences to Suharto's family with a call that "legal action against his cronies, families and loyalists should continue."
Rachman, who was jailed for defamation as a student during Suharto's rule, cited the 1975 invasion of East Timor and military crimes during the bloody separatist war in Aceh province as abuses for which victims of his regime are still seeking justice.
Investigative journalist and activist Andreas Harsono vividly remembers as a teenager watching the president's military police shoot a young boy in the street in a bid to reduce petty crime.
"He did not hesitate to take the law into his own hands to solve the problem. The question is: did he solve the problem? Of course not," Harsono said.
Harsono said as a journalist he experienced first hand the suppression of the media by Suharto's regime.
"In the future people will praise him, people will call him the 'father of development', people will deny that he was even involved in fascist activities, in killings and suppressing our freedoms, because he has never been tried," Harsono said.
nhs/bs/str/aub/pst
Indonesia-quake-housing-recovery,FEATURE
High spirits drive speedy recovery after Indonesian quake
by Nabiha Shahab
BANTUL, Indonesia, Jan 16, 2008 (AFP) - With every step he takes, Sukasdi feels a shard of pain shoot down his back, reminding him of the day two years ago that a powerful earthquake destroyed his home and broke his spine.
"I had to stay more than a month in hospital. I didn't know what had happened to my family and home, so I insisted on going home," says the wiry survivor who still moves slowly but speaks with a lively sparkle in his eye.
Already, the 40-year-old handicrafts maker has a new house and his business is thriving, like many in Bantul, the district worst ravaged by a 6.3-magnitude quake on Indonesia's main island of Java in May 2006.
More than 6,000 people were killed and around 280,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the dawn temblor that rattled the provinces of Yogyakarta and Central Java.
Yet less than two years after the disaster, 90 percent of reconstruction is complete and businesses are up and running again thanks to the survivors' drive and a community spirit that saw them band together, people here say.
Sukasdi was at his home in Manding village, a handicrafts centre in Bantul, when the quake struck.
A brick wall collapsed breaking his back and arm as he saved the life of his two-year-old daughter. He spent months in a wheelchair.
With the little money he had saved, the father of two set up his business again in a makeshift bamboo shack next to the ruins of his home.
And he did not have to wait long before he received his first purchase order, with his regular clients sticking by him despite the hiccup in production.
"I wasn't well then, so I just made the designs and directed from my wheelchair," Sukasdi tells AFP, adding that now his family has moved back into an almost completed brick house where their old home used to be.
"Almost 85 percent of the businesses in Manding were destroyed after the quake, but now almost everyone has recovered," says neighbour Sarjimin, who leads a group of around 70 handicraft businesses.
Recovery after the quake, says Nia Sarinastiti from the World Bank office in Jakarta, was "quite fast".
"The spirit of working together among the community there is very strong. Our approach is community-driven so people feel more responsibility to their recovery work," she says.
The World Bank, which is providing some of the financial assistance for reconstruction, estimated total damage and losses from the quake at around 29.1 trillion rupiah (3.1 billion dollars).
-- Strong community spirit helps rebuild homes and lives --
Total financing for reconstruction was almost eight trillion rupiah -- around 80 percent of which was provided by the central government of the world's fourth most populous nation.
Rizon Pamardhi Utomo, an expert with the government agency overseeing the Java quake reconstruction, said the disaster was quite a different phenomenon compared to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Indonesia's Aceh province, at the tip of Sumatra island, bore the brunt of the disaster, which killed 168,000 people as massive walls of water obliterated vast swathes of coastline, wiping out entire villages and extended families.
About 120,000 homes are being built for survivors, with more than 100,000 completed.
"Unlike Aceh, the people here can be said to be quite lucky in the sense that they could still use materials from their destroyed homes to rebuild their houses," Utomo says, speaking during a tour organised by the body to showcase the speed of recovery here.
After the Java quake, materials could be reused, while social structures remained in place -- something Utomo says "is the main reason behind the rapid recovery of the quake victims here".
On average, each household contributed 27 million rupiah towards rebuilding on top of government assistance of 15-20 million rupiah for each home, he adds.
The strong cooperative spirit is evident across the region.
At one high school, the government provided funding to rebuild 13 classrooms, but managed to rebuild 18 as parents chipped in and old materials were reused, headmaster Emanuel Wigyosundoro says.
Under the reconstruction system, the government gave money directly to communities, which then chose how to spend it, with residents pitching in to help save cash where possible.
The school has transformed the foundations of a three-room building which collapsed at the school, leaving only one corner standing, into a monument of the ill-fated day, now mounted with a marble plaque.
One student was killed, six were injured and one staff member had her back broken.
"Most of the classrooms are functioning back to normal, but we still have to rebuild the student's science lab and handicraft workshop," the headmaster says. "We're hoping for some more aid for that."
nsh/sb/lod
High spirits drive speedy recovery after Indonesian quake
by Nabiha Shahab
BANTUL, Indonesia, Jan 16, 2008 (AFP) - With every step he takes, Sukasdi feels a shard of pain shoot down his back, reminding him of the day two years ago that a powerful earthquake destroyed his home and broke his spine.
"I had to stay more than a month in hospital. I didn't know what had happened to my family and home, so I insisted on going home," says the wiry survivor who still moves slowly but speaks with a lively sparkle in his eye.
Already, the 40-year-old handicrafts maker has a new house and his business is thriving, like many in Bantul, the district worst ravaged by a 6.3-magnitude quake on Indonesia's main island of Java in May 2006.
More than 6,000 people were killed and around 280,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the dawn temblor that rattled the provinces of Yogyakarta and Central Java.
Yet less than two years after the disaster, 90 percent of reconstruction is complete and businesses are up and running again thanks to the survivors' drive and a community spirit that saw them band together, people here say.
Sukasdi was at his home in Manding village, a handicrafts centre in Bantul, when the quake struck.
A brick wall collapsed breaking his back and arm as he saved the life of his two-year-old daughter. He spent months in a wheelchair.
With the little money he had saved, the father of two set up his business again in a makeshift bamboo shack next to the ruins of his home.
And he did not have to wait long before he received his first purchase order, with his regular clients sticking by him despite the hiccup in production.
"I wasn't well then, so I just made the designs and directed from my wheelchair," Sukasdi tells AFP, adding that now his family has moved back into an almost completed brick house where their old home used to be.
"Almost 85 percent of the businesses in Manding were destroyed after the quake, but now almost everyone has recovered," says neighbour Sarjimin, who leads a group of around 70 handicraft businesses.
Recovery after the quake, says Nia Sarinastiti from the World Bank office in Jakarta, was "quite fast".
"The spirit of working together among the community there is very strong. Our approach is community-driven so people feel more responsibility to their recovery work," she says.
The World Bank, which is providing some of the financial assistance for reconstruction, estimated total damage and losses from the quake at around 29.1 trillion rupiah (3.1 billion dollars).
-- Strong community spirit helps rebuild homes and lives --
Total financing for reconstruction was almost eight trillion rupiah -- around 80 percent of which was provided by the central government of the world's fourth most populous nation.
Rizon Pamardhi Utomo, an expert with the government agency overseeing the Java quake reconstruction, said the disaster was quite a different phenomenon compared to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Indonesia's Aceh province, at the tip of Sumatra island, bore the brunt of the disaster, which killed 168,000 people as massive walls of water obliterated vast swathes of coastline, wiping out entire villages and extended families.
About 120,000 homes are being built for survivors, with more than 100,000 completed.
"Unlike Aceh, the people here can be said to be quite lucky in the sense that they could still use materials from their destroyed homes to rebuild their houses," Utomo says, speaking during a tour organised by the body to showcase the speed of recovery here.
After the Java quake, materials could be reused, while social structures remained in place -- something Utomo says "is the main reason behind the rapid recovery of the quake victims here".
On average, each household contributed 27 million rupiah towards rebuilding on top of government assistance of 15-20 million rupiah for each home, he adds.
The strong cooperative spirit is evident across the region.
At one high school, the government provided funding to rebuild 13 classrooms, but managed to rebuild 18 as parents chipped in and old materials were reused, headmaster Emanuel Wigyosundoro says.
Under the reconstruction system, the government gave money directly to communities, which then chose how to spend it, with residents pitching in to help save cash where possible.
The school has transformed the foundations of a three-room building which collapsed at the school, leaving only one corner standing, into a monument of the ill-fated day, now mounted with a marble plaque.
One student was killed, six were injured and one staff member had her back broken.
"Most of the classrooms are functioning back to normal, but we still have to rebuild the student's science lab and handicraft workshop," the headmaster says. "We're hoping for some more aid for that."
nsh/sb/lod
UN-climate-Indonesia-environment-Papua-deforestation
Indonesia's Papua scarred by vanishing forests
by Nabiha Shahab
JAKARTA, Dec 1, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty-five years ago, Papuan tribal leader Ananias Muit was sent from his jungle home to Indonesia's Sumatra island by the local government to learn about lucrative palm oil, and bring it back.
A new short film, "Defenders of the Tribal Boundaries", tells how the arrival of a state-owned plantation company soon afterwards devastated Muit's community in the Arfak mountains of Papua's Bird's Head region.
"'Give us the land and we will give the money to plant,' they said. 'We will bring a palm oil plantation,'" Muit says, repeating the government's promise.
Instead, the forests were cleared, but factory effluent polluted the local river, making the water supply unusable.
"The promise was sweet, but now it is bitter," he laments.
"We were not compensated for our land or even thanked. Now we are really suffering, and we regret it."
The film, one of four locally-made shorts that highlight the shocking impact of deforestation in remote Papua, will be featured at a UN climate change conference on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, which begins next week.
The 10-minute clips, shot by aid workers using handheld digital cameras over the past three months, demonstrate the impact expanding palm oil plantations and other destructive logging is having on local communities.
Indonesia is losing its forests at the world's fastest rate, with some two million hectares (4.9 million acres) disappearing each year, according to environmental watchdog Greenpeace.
Up to 80 percent of logging in Indonesia is estimated to be illegal -- due to a lack of political will to crack down as well as negligible law enforcement -- but the films demonstrate that even legal logging has far-reaching and negative consequences.
In "Tears of Mother Mooi", the people of Sorong issue an impassioned call to the government to revoke the licenses of two palm oil companies operating on their ancestral land.
Startling images of the devastated remnants of formerly forested areas, clear-cut for plantations, hammer home their plea.
Ronny Dimara, a resident in the community and director of Triton, a local non-governmental organisation that produced the film, said most of the footage had to be recorded secretly.
Much of Papua is closely monitored by Indonesia's military, who stand accused by activists of human rights abuses. Journalists require special permission from the Jakarta government to visit the region.
"We played the film in front of about 20 tribal leaders and they said the problem (of the two companies) needed to be addressed soon," Dimara told a press briefing in Jakarta after the films were screened.
"Early next year we will meet again in a bigger group to decide whether we still want the companies in our area."
The third film, "Gaharu: Disaster or Blessing?", shows how the profitable agarwood industry -- known locally as gaharu -- has brought a myriad of social problems to one Papuan district.
Father Dicky Ogi, who leads an organisation working to offer locals better education, said that along with higher incomes came gambling, prostitution and the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"Education is key, so the people can judge the benefits of selling their land," he told reporters.
The final piece, "Destiny... My Land", explores how external investors exploited the forests of a local community that had previously lived off the land for generations.
"These films may be local stories but they are very relevant to the national and the international level, so we urge people to watch these films," said Jago Wadley from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an independent campaigning organisation that helped the local groups produce the films.
nsh/sb/sst
Indonesia's Papua scarred by vanishing forests
by Nabiha Shahab
JAKARTA, Dec 1, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty-five years ago, Papuan tribal leader Ananias Muit was sent from his jungle home to Indonesia's Sumatra island by the local government to learn about lucrative palm oil, and bring it back.
A new short film, "Defenders of the Tribal Boundaries", tells how the arrival of a state-owned plantation company soon afterwards devastated Muit's community in the Arfak mountains of Papua's Bird's Head region.
"'Give us the land and we will give the money to plant,' they said. 'We will bring a palm oil plantation,'" Muit says, repeating the government's promise.
Instead, the forests were cleared, but factory effluent polluted the local river, making the water supply unusable.
"The promise was sweet, but now it is bitter," he laments.
"We were not compensated for our land or even thanked. Now we are really suffering, and we regret it."
The film, one of four locally-made shorts that highlight the shocking impact of deforestation in remote Papua, will be featured at a UN climate change conference on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, which begins next week.
The 10-minute clips, shot by aid workers using handheld digital cameras over the past three months, demonstrate the impact expanding palm oil plantations and other destructive logging is having on local communities.
Indonesia is losing its forests at the world's fastest rate, with some two million hectares (4.9 million acres) disappearing each year, according to environmental watchdog Greenpeace.
Up to 80 percent of logging in Indonesia is estimated to be illegal -- due to a lack of political will to crack down as well as negligible law enforcement -- but the films demonstrate that even legal logging has far-reaching and negative consequences.
In "Tears of Mother Mooi", the people of Sorong issue an impassioned call to the government to revoke the licenses of two palm oil companies operating on their ancestral land.
Startling images of the devastated remnants of formerly forested areas, clear-cut for plantations, hammer home their plea.
Ronny Dimara, a resident in the community and director of Triton, a local non-governmental organisation that produced the film, said most of the footage had to be recorded secretly.
Much of Papua is closely monitored by Indonesia's military, who stand accused by activists of human rights abuses. Journalists require special permission from the Jakarta government to visit the region.
"We played the film in front of about 20 tribal leaders and they said the problem (of the two companies) needed to be addressed soon," Dimara told a press briefing in Jakarta after the films were screened.
"Early next year we will meet again in a bigger group to decide whether we still want the companies in our area."
The third film, "Gaharu: Disaster or Blessing?", shows how the profitable agarwood industry -- known locally as gaharu -- has brought a myriad of social problems to one Papuan district.
Father Dicky Ogi, who leads an organisation working to offer locals better education, said that along with higher incomes came gambling, prostitution and the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"Education is key, so the people can judge the benefits of selling their land," he told reporters.
The final piece, "Destiny... My Land", explores how external investors exploited the forests of a local community that had previously lived off the land for generations.
"These films may be local stories but they are very relevant to the national and the international level, so we urge people to watch these films," said Jago Wadley from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an independent campaigning organisation that helped the local groups produce the films.
nsh/sb/sst
Lifestyle-Indonesia-books-comic,FEATURE
Islamic superheroes invade Indonesia
by Nabiha Shahab
JAKARTA, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - An apparent explosion has levelled high-rise buildings in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, triggering a security alert. It's the work of an Islamic superhero, a giant, confused teenager who sneezed.
Jabbar the Powerful, the alter-ego of teenager Nawaf Al-Bilali, is the first of 99 superhero characters in an Islamic culture-based comic book series called "The 99" just launched in Indonesia.
The comic seeks to act as a metaphor for what's happening in the Islamic world, its creator, Kuwaiti-born Naif Al-Mutawa, told AFP during a recent visit to Jakarta to launch the colourful, action-packed comic.
"Islam or the Koran can be used for good or for bad," Al-Mutawa said, adding that when either are misused, people blame the Koran, "when in fact they should be blaming the person interpreting the Koran".
Each of the superheroes personifies one of the 99 attributes of God in Islam, with their individual powers derived from mystical gemstones originating from 13th-century Baghdad, and infused with lost ancient knowledge.
Jabbar, for instance, has extraordinary strength that gives him "near-invulnerability and durability". Indonesia's own character, Fatah the Opener, can create a portal dimension used to travel anywhere on Earth.
The main struggle in the story happens between two characters representing the classic good-evil dichotomy, with each competing for the allegiance of "The 99". Even the superheroes themselves are sometimes deceived into crossing to the side of evil, Al-Mutawa explained.
But while the comic is based on Islamic archetypes and culture, there's nothing overtly Islamic in them, he said.
"They are as religious as Spiderman," Al-Mutawa quipped. "There's no mention of prayers or prophets, none of that."
The characters, who work in threes, do not carry weapons and are evenly split between males and females.
In a bid to represent Islam's spread around the world, characters frequently hail from two nations, which also helps to "make sense of the Islamic diaspora".
"For example, Bari is from Sudan but grew up in France, Hadya is from Pakistan but grew up in the UK," he said.
Al-Mutawa worked as a clinical psychologist for more than a decade before he started his own media company. He had treated former prisoners of war in Kuwait and worked with survivors of political torture in New York.
"The Iraqis that I treated were tortured by Saddam or his people. These are people who grew up with Saddam as their hero and yet they were tortured by (his people)," he said.
"What kind of message are we sending our children? Is this what heroes do?"
This disillusionment drove him to write several successful children's books and then to create and co-write "The 99," with former Marvel and DC comic artists helping out, hoping to fill a gap in the global market.
The comic, co-written with Fabian Nicieza, who has worked on hit Marvel titles such as X-Men, is now published across the Middle East in Arabic.
"'The 99' is selling as well in Kuwait and the Emirates as Spiderman is. I know because I sell Spiderman," he said.
The comic will debut in the United States in October, followed by Malaysia next year, while Al-Mutawa is in talks with publishers in Turkey and France.
Yudha Kartohadiprodjo, general manager of "The 99's" Indonesian license holder Femina Group, said he believed the comics would find a receptive audience in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
"In the market today there are no contemporary comics based on Islamic values," he said. "The creator understands Islamic history, and that's important for this Islamic-based story."
Indonesian Muslims can be sensitive when it comes to religious-based stories, with any criticism from Islamic groups potentially risking a nationwide boycott.
A poem recently published in a newspaper in West Java, for instance, sparked outrage from a local religious group for its "un-Islamic" depiction of angels, forcing the writer and the newspaper to print a public apology.
Kartohadiprodjo said he was confident in Al-Mutawa's Islamic credentials.
The 68-page, full-colour first issue of "The 99" had a print run of 25,000 copies and is selling at bookstores for 18,000 rupiah (two dollars). A few national newspapers are considering printing extracts, Kartohadiprodjo said.
And of course, merchandising is to follow soon, with the Islamic superheroes preparing to infiltrate homes via notebooks, T-shirts and mobile phone paraphernalia.
nsh/sb/lod
Islamic superheroes invade Indonesia
by Nabiha Shahab
JAKARTA, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - An apparent explosion has levelled high-rise buildings in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, triggering a security alert. It's the work of an Islamic superhero, a giant, confused teenager who sneezed.
Jabbar the Powerful, the alter-ego of teenager Nawaf Al-Bilali, is the first of 99 superhero characters in an Islamic culture-based comic book series called "The 99" just launched in Indonesia.
The comic seeks to act as a metaphor for what's happening in the Islamic world, its creator, Kuwaiti-born Naif Al-Mutawa, told AFP during a recent visit to Jakarta to launch the colourful, action-packed comic.
"Islam or the Koran can be used for good or for bad," Al-Mutawa said, adding that when either are misused, people blame the Koran, "when in fact they should be blaming the person interpreting the Koran".
Each of the superheroes personifies one of the 99 attributes of God in Islam, with their individual powers derived from mystical gemstones originating from 13th-century Baghdad, and infused with lost ancient knowledge.
Jabbar, for instance, has extraordinary strength that gives him "near-invulnerability and durability". Indonesia's own character, Fatah the Opener, can create a portal dimension used to travel anywhere on Earth.
The main struggle in the story happens between two characters representing the classic good-evil dichotomy, with each competing for the allegiance of "The 99". Even the superheroes themselves are sometimes deceived into crossing to the side of evil, Al-Mutawa explained.
But while the comic is based on Islamic archetypes and culture, there's nothing overtly Islamic in them, he said.
"They are as religious as Spiderman," Al-Mutawa quipped. "There's no mention of prayers or prophets, none of that."
The characters, who work in threes, do not carry weapons and are evenly split between males and females.
In a bid to represent Islam's spread around the world, characters frequently hail from two nations, which also helps to "make sense of the Islamic diaspora".
"For example, Bari is from Sudan but grew up in France, Hadya is from Pakistan but grew up in the UK," he said.
Al-Mutawa worked as a clinical psychologist for more than a decade before he started his own media company. He had treated former prisoners of war in Kuwait and worked with survivors of political torture in New York.
"The Iraqis that I treated were tortured by Saddam or his people. These are people who grew up with Saddam as their hero and yet they were tortured by (his people)," he said.
"What kind of message are we sending our children? Is this what heroes do?"
This disillusionment drove him to write several successful children's books and then to create and co-write "The 99," with former Marvel and DC comic artists helping out, hoping to fill a gap in the global market.
The comic, co-written with Fabian Nicieza, who has worked on hit Marvel titles such as X-Men, is now published across the Middle East in Arabic.
"'The 99' is selling as well in Kuwait and the Emirates as Spiderman is. I know because I sell Spiderman," he said.
The comic will debut in the United States in October, followed by Malaysia next year, while Al-Mutawa is in talks with publishers in Turkey and France.
Yudha Kartohadiprodjo, general manager of "The 99's" Indonesian license holder Femina Group, said he believed the comics would find a receptive audience in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
"In the market today there are no contemporary comics based on Islamic values," he said. "The creator understands Islamic history, and that's important for this Islamic-based story."
Indonesian Muslims can be sensitive when it comes to religious-based stories, with any criticism from Islamic groups potentially risking a nationwide boycott.
A poem recently published in a newspaper in West Java, for instance, sparked outrage from a local religious group for its "un-Islamic" depiction of angels, forcing the writer and the newspaper to print a public apology.
Kartohadiprodjo said he was confident in Al-Mutawa's Islamic credentials.
The 68-page, full-colour first issue of "The 99" had a print run of 25,000 copies and is selling at bookstores for 18,000 rupiah (two dollars). A few national newspapers are considering printing extracts, Kartohadiprodjo said.
And of course, merchandising is to follow soon, with the Islamic superheroes preparing to infiltrate homes via notebooks, T-shirts and mobile phone paraphernalia.
nsh/sb/lod
Indonesia-transport-water,lead Jakarta's new water taxis dodge the garbage by Nabiha Shahab
JAKARTA, June 9, 2007 (AFP) - Jakarta's new water taxis made their virgin journeys Saturday but they had to contend with a low tide and garbage on the waterways.
Twenty-four passengers took a ten-minute journey along the 1.7-kilometre (one-mile) stretch of the Ciliwung river for 1,500 rupiah (17 cents) each way.
Curious residents from nearby neighbourhoods then arrived for a ride on the two 25-seater taxis.
Warsini, 31, queued for an hour to get a ride on the boat with her husband and two children, skipping their usual trip to the city park.
"We never ride on a boat, we're curious," she told AFP.
Another passenger, nine-year-old Audi, said she was excited when her parents took her there for her first boat ride all the way from her house in south Jakarta.
The boats had to travel slowly to avoid floating rubbish on the foul-smelling river.
"The tide was a bit low this morning, and we have to work our way to avoid garbage," boat driver Anas Maruf told AFP.
"Hopefully the river gets cleaned up. (Garbage) got caught on the propeller a few times, but it was not a big problem," he added.
"On maximum speed the boat only needs about three minutes to travel the distance. People should now understand why they should stop throwing garbage to the river," another boat driver, Chairul, said.
"Now that we know that the demand is high, we will increase the frequency soon," head of the service authority Muhammad Zaki told AFP.
"This is just a trial run. We plan to build the infrastructure all the way through the east flood canal towards the coast," he said, adding that the infrastructure is being prepared for a water transport system.
Jakarta's waterways have served as a popular garbage dump site for decades, making it difficult to clear them.
Activists said the water taxis are a welcome first step towards solving the congestion woes of a city with 11 million people and no light rail system, but warn that more needs to be done.
The road parallel to the water taxi route is usually clogged during rush hours.
nsh/jw
JAKARTA, June 9, 2007 (AFP) - Jakarta's new water taxis made their virgin journeys Saturday but they had to contend with a low tide and garbage on the waterways.
Twenty-four passengers took a ten-minute journey along the 1.7-kilometre (one-mile) stretch of the Ciliwung river for 1,500 rupiah (17 cents) each way.
Curious residents from nearby neighbourhoods then arrived for a ride on the two 25-seater taxis.
Warsini, 31, queued for an hour to get a ride on the boat with her husband and two children, skipping their usual trip to the city park.
"We never ride on a boat, we're curious," she told AFP.
Another passenger, nine-year-old Audi, said she was excited when her parents took her there for her first boat ride all the way from her house in south Jakarta.
The boats had to travel slowly to avoid floating rubbish on the foul-smelling river.
"The tide was a bit low this morning, and we have to work our way to avoid garbage," boat driver Anas Maruf told AFP.
"Hopefully the river gets cleaned up. (Garbage) got caught on the propeller a few times, but it was not a big problem," he added.
"On maximum speed the boat only needs about three minutes to travel the distance. People should now understand why they should stop throwing garbage to the river," another boat driver, Chairul, said.
"Now that we know that the demand is high, we will increase the frequency soon," head of the service authority Muhammad Zaki told AFP.
"This is just a trial run. We plan to build the infrastructure all the way through the east flood canal towards the coast," he said, adding that the infrastructure is being prepared for a water transport system.
Jakarta's waterways have served as a popular garbage dump site for decades, making it difficult to clear them.
Activists said the water taxis are a welcome first step towards solving the congestion woes of a city with 11 million people and no light rail system, but warn that more needs to be done.
The road parallel to the water taxi route is usually clogged during rush hours.
nsh/jw
Indonesia-environment-mud-1year,sched Misery for Indonesia's mud volcano victims by Nabiha Shahab
PORONG, Indonesia, May 28, 2007 (AFP) - Muziati, a refugee of Indonesia's "mud volcano", stares at her baby and hopes that the meagre food she gives him will be enough.
"He has to be fed rice juice (formed during cooking) because there's no milk," Muziati says of conditions in a makeshift shelter in Porong on the main island of Java.
"He is small for his age," she adds of her six-month-old boy.
Muziati is among more than 15,000 people who have been forced from their homes across Sidoarjo district in East Java since last year when steaming mud began spewing from the depths of the earth at an exploratory gas well.
One year after the May 29 disaster started, thousands are still living in shelters, and the flow of toxic sludge shows no sign of stopping.
Muziati was three months pregnant last year when she lost her job at a prawncracker factory that was submerged in the massive flow.
Six months later, on the day she gave birth, an embankment, hastily built to contain the hot mud, burst and later swallowed her home.
Muziati, her husband Sudarto and neighbours sought shelter wherever they could before moving to a vacant market building in nearby Porong where they survive on rations of rice from the drilling company blamed for the disaster, Lapindo Brantas.
"Nobody cares enough to even visit us. Not the mayor, not the governor," says Sudarto.
Nine villages, industrial areas and farms over more than 600 hectares (1,500 acres) have been engulfed by the thick mud as authorities grapple with the extent of the disaster.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered Lapindo, an Indonesian firm, to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah (420.7 million dollars) in compensation and mud containment efforts.
But Sudarto and his family have refused an initial cash payment of 20 percent of the value of their homes and land. Like many of the 3,200 sheltering in Porong, they want Lapindo to buy their land so they can rebuild elsewhere.
"We are not beggars, we just ask for our rights," says Sudarto who has named their baby David Lapindo -- after the firm, which has links to welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, one of the nation's richest men.
The disaster has left international engineers scratching their heads and environmentalists fuming about damage to the local ecosystem.
Massive dykes have been built around the volcano to contain the mud, and heavy machinery works overtime carrying dirt and pebbles to strengthen the embankments.
"The dykes are very vulnerable," says security guard Waliyanto pointing to muddy water leaking from the walls around the crater.
Cracks have led to larger leaks, forcing authorities to declare the area off-limits to the public.
The sludge has reached a depth of up to 20 metres in the worst-hit areas with rooftops barely visible. Villages in the outer areas, caked in mud, have been abandoned for safety reasons.
Initiatives to stop the flow have ranged from the scientific to the spiritual.
Engineers spent two months trying to plug the hole with chains of large concrete balls dropped into its core, but the move appears to have failed. Authorities continue to try and channel mud from the dams into a nearby river.
Ahmad Chairusin, 64, arrived at the dykes earlier this month from nearby Kediri town, convinced that he can stop the flow through prayer.
"I fast and pray here twice a day," Chairusin told AFP.
"We should look inwards to ourselves, what have we done wrong (to spark the flow)?" he asks, adding that "the only thing we can do is pray and pray."
Others, including healers and mystics, regularly perform rituals at the dykes, make offerings and cast spells.
Despite the efforts, some 120,000 cubic metres of sludge -- equivalent to 48 Olympic-sized swimming pools -- continues to spew daily from the hole, says Ahmad Zulkarnain, a spokesman for the government agency set up to tackle the crisis.
Supari, 40, remembers watching animals and plants die as the mud moved across the district last May. He never thought the flow would reach his village outside Indonesia's second city of Surabaya so quickly.
"The mud spread so fast, it flooded my house before I could save many of my belongings," he says, adding that he fled in the middle of the night with his wife and two sons.
In the chaos, Supari says he left behind the deeds to his home, the documents he needs to prove ownership and gain compensation.
He used to earn four million rupiah a month selling snacks to schools, and sometimes clothing and coal briquettes. But worrying about his family's future now consumes him.
"It's not that there are no jobs now, but I cannot think straight. Riding this motorcycle taxi is all I dare do," says Supari, motioning to the bike.
"I usually get lucky on Sundays, I guide tourists around the mudflow site."
Supari and his family have rented a house nearby and, unlike other residents, refuse to sell their land. "I cannot sell the land, it has been passed down for generations."
nsh/tha/adm
PORONG, Indonesia, May 28, 2007 (AFP) - Muziati, a refugee of Indonesia's "mud volcano", stares at her baby and hopes that the meagre food she gives him will be enough.
"He has to be fed rice juice (formed during cooking) because there's no milk," Muziati says of conditions in a makeshift shelter in Porong on the main island of Java.
"He is small for his age," she adds of her six-month-old boy.
Muziati is among more than 15,000 people who have been forced from their homes across Sidoarjo district in East Java since last year when steaming mud began spewing from the depths of the earth at an exploratory gas well.
One year after the May 29 disaster started, thousands are still living in shelters, and the flow of toxic sludge shows no sign of stopping.
Muziati was three months pregnant last year when she lost her job at a prawncracker factory that was submerged in the massive flow.
Six months later, on the day she gave birth, an embankment, hastily built to contain the hot mud, burst and later swallowed her home.
Muziati, her husband Sudarto and neighbours sought shelter wherever they could before moving to a vacant market building in nearby Porong where they survive on rations of rice from the drilling company blamed for the disaster, Lapindo Brantas.
"Nobody cares enough to even visit us. Not the mayor, not the governor," says Sudarto.
Nine villages, industrial areas and farms over more than 600 hectares (1,500 acres) have been engulfed by the thick mud as authorities grapple with the extent of the disaster.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered Lapindo, an Indonesian firm, to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah (420.7 million dollars) in compensation and mud containment efforts.
But Sudarto and his family have refused an initial cash payment of 20 percent of the value of their homes and land. Like many of the 3,200 sheltering in Porong, they want Lapindo to buy their land so they can rebuild elsewhere.
"We are not beggars, we just ask for our rights," says Sudarto who has named their baby David Lapindo -- after the firm, which has links to welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, one of the nation's richest men.
The disaster has left international engineers scratching their heads and environmentalists fuming about damage to the local ecosystem.
Massive dykes have been built around the volcano to contain the mud, and heavy machinery works overtime carrying dirt and pebbles to strengthen the embankments.
"The dykes are very vulnerable," says security guard Waliyanto pointing to muddy water leaking from the walls around the crater.
Cracks have led to larger leaks, forcing authorities to declare the area off-limits to the public.
The sludge has reached a depth of up to 20 metres in the worst-hit areas with rooftops barely visible. Villages in the outer areas, caked in mud, have been abandoned for safety reasons.
Initiatives to stop the flow have ranged from the scientific to the spiritual.
Engineers spent two months trying to plug the hole with chains of large concrete balls dropped into its core, but the move appears to have failed. Authorities continue to try and channel mud from the dams into a nearby river.
Ahmad Chairusin, 64, arrived at the dykes earlier this month from nearby Kediri town, convinced that he can stop the flow through prayer.
"I fast and pray here twice a day," Chairusin told AFP.
"We should look inwards to ourselves, what have we done wrong (to spark the flow)?" he asks, adding that "the only thing we can do is pray and pray."
Others, including healers and mystics, regularly perform rituals at the dykes, make offerings and cast spells.
Despite the efforts, some 120,000 cubic metres of sludge -- equivalent to 48 Olympic-sized swimming pools -- continues to spew daily from the hole, says Ahmad Zulkarnain, a spokesman for the government agency set up to tackle the crisis.
Supari, 40, remembers watching animals and plants die as the mud moved across the district last May. He never thought the flow would reach his village outside Indonesia's second city of Surabaya so quickly.
"The mud spread so fast, it flooded my house before I could save many of my belongings," he says, adding that he fled in the middle of the night with his wife and two sons.
In the chaos, Supari says he left behind the deeds to his home, the documents he needs to prove ownership and gain compensation.
He used to earn four million rupiah a month selling snacks to schools, and sometimes clothing and coal briquettes. But worrying about his family's future now consumes him.
"It's not that there are no jobs now, but I cannot think straight. Riding this motorcycle taxi is all I dare do," says Supari, motioning to the bike.
"I usually get lucky on Sundays, I guide tourists around the mudflow site."
Supari and his family have rented a house nearby and, unlike other residents, refuse to sell their land. "I cannot sell the land, it has been passed down for generations."
nsh/tha/adm
