also: FEER/Intelligence: Indonesian Military Sees Red Threat

Far Eastern Economic Review Issue cover-dated February 5, 2004

Intelligence

Indonesians Hire Dole as Lobbyist

The Indonesian government has hired former Republican Senate majority leader Bob Dole as a lobbyist, the first time Jakarta has taken on a prominent United States politician to represent its interests in Washington. The idea to get Dole on board is believed to have come from Dino Djalal, head of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry's North American desk. A senior U.S. official says Dole has the ear of both Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, and can exercise considerable influence on Capitol Hill, where congressmen recently voted yet again against the restoration of military relations between the U.S. and Indonesia. Former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas told a U.S.-Indonesia Society reception in mid-January that public relations was one of his country's worst failings. Currently special counsel to Alston & Bird, a major Washington law firm, Dole ran unsuccessfully against Bill Clinton as the Republican candidate in the 1996 presidential election.

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Far Eastern Economic Review Issue cover-dated February 5, 2004

Intelligence

Indonesian Military Sees Red Threat

So much for Indonesian armed forces chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto's promise that the military will refrain from any attempt at influencing this year's general elections. Nearly 40 years after the bloody military-led purge of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), the Pamungkas regional command in the central Java city of Jogjakarta has sent a letter to the General Elections Commission with the names of 42 candidates for the provincial legislative council that it says are "environmentally unclean"--a euphemism for ties to the PKI. The candidates are from 12 parties, including the former ruling Golkar party and President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle. Most of those named are said to be relatives of former PKI members, an indication of the paranoia that still prevails in the army long after the communists have ceased to be a threat. Indeed, authorities have failed to uncover any evidence that the communists have sought to stage a revival since an estimated 500,000 people died in the orgy of violence against suspected communists that followed the overthrow of President Sukarno in 1965.

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