The Jakarta Post, 5/26/2004 6:03:39 PM
ICG's chief says Indonesia threatening to expel her
JAKARTA (AFP): The Jakarta-based director of an international analysts' group said
Wednesday that Indonesian authorities have threatened to expel her because of her
reports on the country.
Sidney Jones of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said "serious
accusations" were made against her on Tuesday during a meeting between the
National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and a parliamentary security affairs committee.
In a statement she quoted Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda as saying Wednesday
that ICG's reports were biased and that the government had the right to expel whoever
it chose.
Jones said authorities had refused to extend work permits for ICG's foreign staff,
based on a complaint which they refused to specify. "How can we answer charges
when the charges are made in secret?"
She said she had been trying unsuccessfully for two months to meet BIN director
Hendropriyono to discuss her group's work.
Foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said Wirayuda had not alleged bias
but "wondered about the authoritativeness of some of her reports," including those on
Aceh.
He said the government is not in the business of removing people from the country but
added that the foreign ministry has nothing to do with Jones's work permit.
"This is a classic case of someone trying to make a martyr of one's self," Natalegawa
said. "They are creating a crisis which is non-existent between the Indonesian
government and ICG."
ICG's Jakarta office, one of 19 around the world, has produced reports on Aceh,
Papua, Maluku, Poso, police and military reform, decentralisation and terrorism.
Jones, a US citizen, worked for Human Rights Watch for 14 years, based in New
York. She also ran a United Nations human rights programme in East Timor from
December 1999 to July 2000. She arrived in Indonesia in May 2002.
ICG president Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister, said in a statement
he has total confidence in Jones and the Jakarta team.
"I think the Indonesian government should take into account that if we are expelled
from Indonesia, this will do far more damage to Indonesia's reputation than ICG's," he
said.
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