Left Flank

Gallup concludes that with higher fuel costs and ameliorative handouts, it will be a very expensive year for Indonesia.

Given Indonesians' already dismal outlook on their standard of living and economy, it raises the question of how much patience they will show with their government -- especially in next year's election -- if high inflation persists as expected. As in 2005, the government is giving Indonesia's poor $1.5 billion in cash handouts over the next year and a half to help stem unrest and ease the financial strain of higher prices. This approach appeared to quell protests then, but double-digit inflation persisted for more than a year afterward.

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RP-US military and law enforcement cooperation has netted a body with a sadistic past. The corpse of Dulmatin, an Indonesian member of Jemaah Islamiyah(JI), was recovered from Tawi-Tawi, and another JI operative, Mohamad Baehaqi, is in custody.

US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Filipino crime laboratory experts have arrived in this southern city to conduct the tests that officials say will take about a week.

Tissue from the exhumed body will be compared with samples that were taken from Dulmatin's children in the southern Philippines last year.

The US government has offered a 10 million-dollar bounty for Dulmatin, a senior figure in the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) movement, who is believed to have been hiding out in the south for most of the past five years.

He was earlier reported to have been wounded in a clash with government troops in the region on January 31.

The recovered body bore gunshot wounds in the head, chest and right foot, consistent with earlier accounts of Dulmatin's injuries in the gunfight, Dolorfino said. This bolstered their belief that the body was that of the Indonesian.

Dolorfino said that if that is confirmed, then "this is a big blow to them (JI) as he is the most wanted personality in the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah" in the Philippines.

The suspect had helped plan and carry out the 2002 bombings in Bali that left 202 people -- many of them Australian tourists -- dead.

According to durianburgdavao's Balanza, Dulmatin had several acolytes, including Mohammed Baehaqi, who were also arrested.

Muhammad Baehaqi alias Latip, Salam and Tato, was collared during a raid by military in a house in Piso, Banaybanay in possession of a .22 Winchester rifle, a shotgun and blasting caps, detonating cords and other bomb-making materials and equipment.

Arrested with Baehaqi were Idamat Generoso and his son Ustadz Mujar, who is a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that the military said is linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah. Baehagi was nabbed in the house of the Idamat Generoso, an employee of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Baehaqi is said to have undergone explosives training under Jemaah Islamiyah bomb experts Dulmatin and Omar Patek, and suspected as the leader of a terrorist team that recently bombed General Santos City, and Makilala and Kidapawan City in North Cotabato.

There is also this Jamestown Foundation piece about the importance of breaking up Dulmatin's group.

No one offers such solid advice when a decent human being dies, but Muslim clerics struck a humble chord on the occasion of the death of Suharto, Indonesia's second president:

As he lay dying in hospital, Indonesians across the archipelago debated his legacy and whether the government should push ahead with legal proceedings against him for graft.

At the hospital, some people tried to cling on to the ambulance as Suharto's body was placed inside to be driven to his house in Jakarta's leafy Menteng district.

Hundreds of journalists and well-wishers, including former ministers and religious leaders, were gathered at the house.

"For humanity's sake, we should forgive him. Based on religion, his crimes and his deeds on earth will be subject to God's judgment only. The living can't do anything," Amidan, a member of the Indonesian Ulema Council, a grouping of Islamic clerics, told reporters at the house.

Two issues will consume debate about Suharto's 32-year tenure as Indonesia's leader: human rights violations and development.

Strabo at Kos also brings up Naomi Klein's recent arguments about Suharto's relationship to "disaster capitalism":

Suharto's Indonesia plays an important role in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine:  The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.  As Klein documents in her book, Indonesia was the testing ground for Disaster Capitalism where the modern tactics of violent repression and capitalist takeover were first implemented.  At the behest of his Western supporters, Suharto targeted for violent suppression communists, leftists, and anyone else in the population who dared resist the corporate takeover of their country.

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Throughout Suharto's rule 30 year rule, he would alternatively shun or fawn over the Berkeley Mafia, telling them to go away in good times so that he, his family, and his cronies could rig the economy in their favor, and then calling them back--along with the IMF and World Bank - whenever things got bad.  Meanwhile, the repression continued.  Suharto's rule cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians.  Perhaps even millions.  It had a great effect on Suharto's wealth though.  Recent estimates put his family's holdings around fifteen billion dollars.

Guilt is in God's hands, the rest is very important for the rest of humanity.