Archive for May, 2007
Surabaya, East Java - The local bicycle club, Polygon Sweet Nice (PSN) Surabaya has confirmed to take part in the “Tour de Korea” to be held on September 1-9.
“We are invited by the Korean Cycling Federation (KCF). And we don`t want to miss the chance to appear before the world bicycle racer Lance Armstrong,” Director for Technical Affairs of the Club Harijanto Tjondrokusumo told the press on Monday.
He said the participants of the event would be seen off by Armstrong. He said the club would send its six racers for the event that will compete a total cash of US$100,000.
ANTARA News
May 23rd, 2007
King Rahwana was so angry when he received the letter from Prabu Danaraja, the step-brother of Dewi Widowati, that he had the messenger, Goh Muka, killed.
Goh Muka died because the King of Alengka had been offended by the content of Danaraja’s letter, which advised Rahwana not to marry Dewi Widowati. In the meantime, Rahwana and his army were under attack by the Lokapala Kingdom — led by Danaraja himself.
Rahwana was not alone in his predicament, and was supported by his teacher, Subali.
Danaraja, who also felt threatened, asked for help from Wisnungkara, a scholar, and his uncle Kisrahwana.
War broke out and the world trembled. Rahwana and his troops successfully defeated the Lokapala Kingdom; Wisnungkara and Kisrahwana were killed, and King Danaraja was in retreat.
But at that moment, the god Batara Narada came down from Heaven, separated the armies, and stopped the war.
The god asked King Danaraja to accept defeat, and he agreed. The kingdom of Lokapala then had to submit to the authority of Rahwana.
Unfortunately Rahwana, a mythical gigantic demon with a terrifying face, couldn’t find Dewi Widowati, who had run away. Rahwana swore to keep looking for Dewi Widowati — who is also described as Dewi Sri, which can mean “a grain of rice”.
The tale of Rahwana seeking Dewi Widowati is a fragment of a longer story contained in the Rama Sungging, an original picture manuscript now on display through May 13 at the House of Sampoerna art gallery in Surabaya.
Rama Sungging is an important part of the heritage of Indonesian puppetry. Sungging is a story with pictures that tells of events that lead up to the Ramayana epic, and is usually known as the account of Rahwana’s activities in the Lokapala Kingdom.
There are three main strains in Rama Sungging that weave into the Ramayana, the great Hindu classic that provides the themes for much of Javanese literature and traditional performing arts.
The first story is about Cupu Manik Astagina, a sacred object that was given as a gift by the god Batara Surya to Dewi Windradi. In Cupu Manik Astagina are contained the true secrets of nature and heaven.
The second tale is from Jendra literature, a story about a war between the King of Lokapala, Prabu Danaraja, and his father, Begawan Wisrawa. The conflict was triggered by Wisrawa’s marriage to Dewi Sukesi, a girl who loved Prabu Danaraja.
The last story is about Rahwana’s search for Dewi Widowati.
The Rama Sungging manuscript currently on exhibit belongs to the Bentara Budaya cultural center in Yogyakarta. It is an important and highly valued historical document obtained from a book lover in Jakarta who wants to remain anonymous.
When the Rama Sungging was first received last year, it had not been well preserved. From research undertaken by the Bentara Budaya, it is estimated that the manuscript was written around the 18th century.
Some clues come from the paper, which has a logo showing a lion in a circle and uses a specific typeface. This has been identified as paper made by the Dutch during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The manuscript also contains words in the Javanese alphabet known as honocoroko alongside puppet pictures.
It’s believed that the Sanskrit writing and puppet pictures were made by a man of letters or a keraton (palace) official, as at that time, only the palace had access to the Dutch government that could have supplied the paper.
The style is different from another picture manuscript that is owned by the keraton, in that the Rama Sungging is more expressive.
The script differs from the usual way of writing Javanese where the lettering is round and sharp — a style particular to the palace. Instead, the formation of the letters are not symmetrical.
“From the shape of the letters and Sanskrit language used, this is an old manuscript,” said Surono, a member of the Indonesian Puppet Masters’ Association who was present at the exhibition opening.
“The pictures in the Rama Sungging manuscript show a type of puppet known as wayang purwa, or classical. Three characters are illustrated.
“For example, in the Cupu Manik Astagina story the puppet is shown with a body shape like that of a human being. However, in the other two stories the puppet figures appear very similar to those used in modern shadow puppetry. The body is elongated, and there are two different designs,” he pointed out.
“The way these pictures have been drawn is typical of the style found in East Java. Look at the shape of the mustache forming a circle, and the way part of the kris is located in front.”
While examining the clear and colorful pictures, Surono noted a pencil scratch. This discovery makes him a little anxious about the conservation of the Rama Sungging manuscript.
“During the period this manuscript was made, did pencils exist?” he asked.
I.D. Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya
May 22nd, 2007
“gedog” refers to a style of handspun cotton batik produced in the Tuban district of east java.Batik production in java is robust howeverelse will you find hand drawn batik on a handspunfield.This is the only area where you will find textiles produced on a traditional backstraploom and the onlyplace in java where women still spin thread.
Two variatiesof cotton are still grown for use in these unique textile. The white cotton dominates whit a small amount of natural brown cotton is used for specific types of textiles. Natural indigo dye is widely used and to a lesser extent sogan, a yellow/brown dye produced from the bark of treethat is no longer abundant in the neighborhood.
This batik gedog from the hand women villages has a hanspun cotton field with hand painted motif, “Nggajian” and “manukan” natural indigo dye.The natural indigo blue in this textile is very deep,requiring somewhere between 30 to 40 dippings and rinsings to achieve this level of dark blue back.
The format is that of “sayud” used as a sling for carrying babies or large baskets of wares to the market. size between 56cm x 256cm or 22″x102″
gedog.blogspot.com
May 21st, 2007
The Japanese government may provide soft loans of up to 1 trillion rupiah (110 million U.S. dollars) to Indonesia to help the country stop mudflow from a punctured gas well in East Java that has been gushing since last May.
The loans were proposed following a presentation to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week, in which Japanese scientists offered possible solutions to stop the mudflow, Indonesian Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro has said.
One solution involves the construction of a “double-cover dam” to contain the mud, until it reaches a sufficient volume whereby it will serve as a counterweight to the flowing mud, said the minister, quoted by English daily The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. The scientists said they had successfully carried out a similar project in the Philippines.
“The terms and conditions of the loan have not been finalized, but there will be another Cabinet meeting to discuss this issue within the next two weeks,” Purnomo told reporters.
The proposed dam would be 120 meters in diameter and 40 meters in height.
The government has pledged to set aside at least 2.5 trillion rupiah (275 million dollars) from the state budget to fix infrastructure facilities damaged by the mudflow in the town of Sidoarjo.
More than 13,000 homes, schools and factories have been inundated by the mud.
Source: Xinhua
May 21st, 2007
Indonesia plans to increase its cotton production to 70,000 tons in 2010 to reduce its dependencw on imports, Director General of Plantations Achmad Manggabarani said here on Monday.
He said domestic need for cotton at present reached 550,000 tons a year but only 5,000 tons of it could be met by domestic production and the rest had to be met with imports.
“To meet the production target we plan to open 50,000 hectares of cotton plantations until 2010 and raise productivity to 1.4 tons per hectare,” he said.
He said at present productivity of cotton plantations in Indonesia reachied only 0.6 tons per hectare because the seeds the farmers used were of low quality.
The cotton plantation development program would be implemented in 55 districts in seven provinces, namely Central Java, East Java, Yogyakarta, Bali, East Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi.
At a production rate of 70,000 tons a year, national cotton plantations` contribution to the domestic textile industry and textile production would reach 4.7 percent or up 0.5 percent from the present level.
In 2006, cotton plantation development reached 8,980 hectares producing 4,191 tons of raw cotton equivalent to 1,397 tons of processed cotton to contribute 0.3 percent to the textile industry and textile production.
Manggabarani said three companies would be involved in the development of cotton, namely PT Nusa Farm in West Nusa Tenggara, PT Sukun in East Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta and Bali and PT Sebo Fajar in South Sulawesi.
The president director of PT Ade Agroindustry, Ii` Tjahyadi, said the textile industry needed a large quantity of long-fiber cotton. “The seeds are mostly imported and the resulte are good,” he said.
He said the country actually had large potentials for cotton plantation development but it still had yet to overcome irrigation problems because the plantations were located on marginal land.
Commenting on the irrigation problem, director of water management of the directorate of water and land management of the ministry of agriculture, Gator Irianto, said his office would strive to exploit water sources from shallow and surface water supply for cotton plantations.
“We will use local equipment for easy operation by local farmers ,” he said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News)
May 18th, 2007
The tall, white-haired man smiled as he signed the copy of Kamus Lengkap Indonesia-Inggris (The Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary).
“I was paid 5 cent an hours for making this dictionary,” Alan Stevens, a professional translator and retired linguistics professor at City University of New York, later said.
He was not joking.
It took Alan and his colleague, A. Schmidgall-Tellings, more than 20 years to produce the 1,103-page dictionary, which hit the market here last year.
“I did it for my beloved Indonesia,” said Alan, who looks much younger than his age of 72.
He expressed his feelings about the country during his brief visit here early last month to attend a meeting of professional translators grouped in the Bahtera mailing list that unexpectedly became an unofficial book-signing event.
His affection for the country was reflected his brown batik shirt, which suited him. Alan, who visits the country every few years, has spent much time in Indonesia.
He studied French at Columbia University, where he got his bachelor of arts degree in 1956, before he went to Yale University to do South East Asian Studies.
“You have to study an exotic language,” Alan recalled his professor telling him in 1960.
Alan could have learned Chinese or Vietnamese, but he picked Indonesian, which he found quite interesting, and decided to leave the United States for Indonesia, a country he had never been to before.
It turned out that Alan loved not only Indonesian, but also Madurese. The phonology and morphology of the language spoken by people living in Madura, an island off Surabaya in East Java, became the object of his research.
Alan obtained his PhD degree in linguistics, Indonesian, from Yale in 1964 and began to teach at City University of New York. Unfortunately, only as few as five people were interested in studying the language. “Indonesia is so far away…,” he reasoned.
He later came to Malang, where he taught English at the Teachers’ Training Institute. The local flavor strongly affected not only Alan, but also his little son, who spent his childhood among locals.
“One day he came to me and asked opo iki (the Javanese for ‘what’s this’)?” Alan recalled with a big smile.
Alan was director of the summer program in advanced Indonesian language study in Malang, East Java, from 1979 to 1992.
He was also an adjunct professor of Indonesian, at the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Columbia University, from 1987-1992. He later became the professor of linguistics at the City University of New York and a member of Graduate Faculty, City University of New York Graduate Center, before he retired in 2004. He is now focusing on his Indonesian and Malaysian translation services, translating, interpreting, editing and proofreading.
Translating is difficult. Many people, even those claiming to be professional translators often make many mistakes, says Alan, who has more than 25 years experience in translating, editing, and proofreading.
A good translation needs two people, one the native speaker of the target language who knows the source language and the other a native speaker of the source language who knows the target language.
Expertise in grammar is not a guarantee of a good translation. Alan gave an example, telling the story of a Sweden vacuum cleaner producer who, in its advertising campaign, said: “Nothing sucks like this”. This is grammatically correct, but anyone who knows the language well will immediately know that there is something wrong with the ad.
There is no doubt that Alan knows a great deal about Indonesian, as demonstrated by his dictionary. Even though it is called The Indonesian-English Dictionary, Alan goes beyond.
“It is a compilation of all the roots, words, phrases, proverbs, idioms, compounds, and derivatives that the authors have found in written and spoken Indonesian,” Alan says in the preface of the dictionary.
The completeness of the entries might surprise many. For example, you will find the word katro, which is today widely used by many people here as it is a favorite of Tukul Arwana, the host of a popular TV talk show Empat Mata (Four Eyes or Face to Face), to tease the audience.
According to the dictionary, katro, derived from Javanese, or kampungan means 1) behind the times, conservative, 2) unmannerly, ill-bred, a hick.
Relatively new terms are also to found in the dictionary, such as pasar kaget: small market without a permanent location and goyang ngebor: gyrations, erotic hip movements, and even abbreviations or short terms such as jjs (jalan jalan santai/sore or to hang out, take a stroll) KKN (korupsi, kolusi dan nepotisme): corruption, collusion and nepotism, pungli (pungutan liar): illegal fee and gepeng (gelandangan dan pengemis): homeless drifters and panhandlers.
Other entries you might not expect, and you might not know, even if you are an Indonesian, include denai: trail, spoor, track of a wild animal in the forest or jungle; husada: medicine, health and jangat: skin (of human or animal body), dermis.
The last Indonesian-English dictionary, compiled by John M. Echols and Hassan Shadily, and was first published in 1961.
Alan’s dictionary was first printed by Ohio University Press in August 2004, with a second printing in 2005. In Jakarta, the dictionary was published by Mizan.
Co-author Schmidgall-Tellings, who had a Dutch father and Javanese mother, died in 1997 after working with Alan for more than two decades to produce the dictionary.
Asked about his difficulties in compiling the dictionary, Alan said: “The difficulty was that it took much time.”
“But I am satisfied with the publication of this dictionary,” he said.
May 18th, 2007
The sound of children can be heard coming from inside Busthanul Athfal, a small mosque in Tegal Randu village on Madura Island in East Java province. But as soon as Matruki enters the wooden structure, the dozens of children fall instantly silent, their gaze focused on the 59-year-old man.
Matruki sits cross-legged on the floor, with his grandchild on his lap, as the children sit around him in a semi-circle. “Have you all contemplated what you have done today?” he asks in Madurese.
The students, aged between 7 and 12, remain shyly quiet.
“We have to be able to reflect on what we have done. By doing so, we can know what we’ll do next,” said Matruki, who has been teaching since 1982.
His words break the ice. One by one, the students, mostly children of migrant workers in the village, located in Klakah district in Lumajang regency, East Java, speak up.
“We have to work together to become smarter,” said one of the students, Kiki.
The lesson was organized by Rakyat Merdeka, an alternative school in the village. At the school, everyone is a teacher, every place is a school. This phrase sums up the spirit of the school, which is to keep learning and to provide knowledge to everyone, everywhere.
Tegal Randu’s school is part of a network of similar schools established by the Rakyat Merdeka Institution, which was set up in 2005.
The mosque used to host only Koran recital lessons, led by Matruki. Then about two years ago, the institute enriched and upgraded the teaching process, providing alternative learning methods. Matruki supported the move.
The school’s presence has been like rain in the middle of the desert. Most of the children in the village were forced to end their formal education after elementary school, because their parents could not afford the fees.
Most of those in the village who can afford it prefer to continue their studies at Islamic boarding schools across Lumajang regency. Others give up on formal education and pursue religious knowledge, such as taking Koran recital lessons in mosques.
“We try to introduce general knowledge in ways that are easily understood,” a mentor, A. Santoso, told The Jakarta Post.
Social studies subjects are introduced through discussions on the surrounding community and its problems. Natural sciences are taught by going out into the fields and actually planting and looking after seeds, while Indonesian art and literature are introduced through dance, poetry readings and making masks and musical instruments.
The school also offers students the chance to learn about subjects they may be naturally curious about, such as computers or English.
“We want to teach them whatever they need. They can learn what they need to know here,” said Santoso.
There is one compulsory “subject”, self-reflection, which takes place before the students start their classes.
“We teach children to evaluate what they have done during the day,” said Matruki, who owns the mosque which hosts the school. “Self-evaluation will prevent students from making the same mistakes again.”
Lessons are concentrated in the mosque, a modest building where students attend classes from 2 to 5 p.m.
Unlike most mosques, the walls of Busthanul Athfal are decorated with educational posters, some offering the English names of fruits and human body parts, others giving the Javanese words for different objects.
Textbook-filled shelves sit in one corner, while a number is a pile of musical instruments. All of these items are available for free.
“It’s already a blessing if they come to the mosque regularly,” said Santoso.
With its location on the banks of Lake Klakah and near the slopes of Mount Lamongan, the mosque also is ideally placed to teach students about nature.
Students begin their activities by reflecting on themselves and their day, then they recite the Koran and enjoy art lessons. They stop for afternoon prayers and then are free to choose from a range of available activities and lessons, from computers to gardening.
There are around 40 students at the school, most children but also a few adults.
Student Sholeh thinks the lessons offered by Rakyat Merdeka are more “fulfilling” than those at regular schools.
“I know now that there is so much knowledge out there, not just what is taught at schools. Now I know the types of plants that grow in my village,” said Sholeh, 17, whose mother left home to work in Malaysia six years ago.
Sholeh is now honing his computer skills and dreams of getting a job where he can utilize these skills.
He also has another dream.
“I want to travel the world. Who knows, I can gain more knowledge along the way,” said Sholeh, in the same spirit as his school, where everyone is a teacher and every place is a school.
ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Lumajang
May 16th, 2007
Madhura ampon kalonta e manca naghara/Buja tor tana kapor/Santre tor para keyae/Maasre sahajana baburughan…
Madura has gained world fame/Tho’ it abounds in only salt and lime/With its Muslim students and clerics/All its pursuits will come true…
The verse above, quoted from the work of Madura-born poet Ismail, was recited on the sidelines of a cultural congress on Madura, a major East Java island, which was held to hear the Madurese people’s aspirations for their future.
The Pamekasan poet’s dream virtually amounts to the hopes of the entire island population, as was revealed at the inaugural Congress on Madura Culture, held in Sumenep from March 9-11.
Initiated by intellectuals, artists and cultural experts of the “salt island”, the congress was prompted by concerns that the Madurese community had not risen above its lower-middle economic bracket, let alone its ethnic stereotypes.
“There are 13 million Madurese citizens in Indonesia, but only three million live on this island while the rest have spread all over the country. It’s a sad thing to note that life in this region has remained unchanged,” said Mien Ahmad Rifai, a Madurese researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
“The time has come for Madura to start growing and be developed by its own people,” added Said Abdullah, a Madurese member of the House of Representatives.
Their concerns found an outlet as the island’s thinkers came up with the idea of convening the congress under the auspices of the Said Abdullah Institute (SAI) — a center that focuses on women’s education and empowerment. With the support of a local non-governmental organization, Ngadek Sodek Parjuga, and two media, a total of 150 delegates from four regencies of Madura, Bangkalan, Sampang, Pamekasan and Sumenep, attended the congress.
National and international experts and observers of Madura were also invited as keynote speakers, including man of letters D. Zamawi Imron, LIPI researcher Mien Ahmad Rifai, Madura conflict researcher A. Latief Wijaya and Dutch anthropologist Huub de Jonge of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
The community living on the 5,300 sq km island is inseparable from its lofty values that serve as guidelines of life in the region, said to have been inhabited for the first time some 4,000 years ago.
“The values of life are followed by locals as rules of their livelihood, but regrettably the knowledge is considered sacred and thus impossible to develop, not to mention innovate,” said Mien Rifai.
As time has passed by, the conservative character of this community has left it behind, prompting the stereotype of the rude, rowdy, irritable, hot-blooded and ill-mannered Madurese — and ensuing public avoidance, resistance and rejection.
“Worse still, ethnic Madurese are seen as lacking initiative, being rigid, unable to keep pace with progress, and so forth,” Rifai added.
These impressions are seemingly justified by the backward physical condition of the island compared with the other areas of East Java, although Madura is geographically closest to Indonesia’s second largest city, Surabaya. Rifai even likened the fate of the Madurese to Jewish, Chinese, Armenian and Kurdish minorities, whose presence has always aroused suspicion.
“The social environs where the four groups live won’t let them grow,” Rifai pointed out.
What actually lies behind the negative public image of the Madurese people is misunderstanding of their traditions and customs.
For example, regarding the assumption that the Madurese community is inclined to be “violent”, an analysis by Madura conflict researcher Dr. A. Latief Wijaya showed that the ethnic culture of the Madurese demands a strict or firm approach — rather than “violence”. This attitude is easily noticeable in their choice of colors and in their cuisine.
“If they choose red, it’s just plain red, and blue is blue, there’s no shade or hue. So is food — they like strong tastes,” said Latief.
In interaction, however, this firmness appears spontaneously, often combined with heightened expressiveness. But this is not without reason.
“The spontaneity and overreaction arise when Madurese people are degraded, or in their own words tada ajhina (their very existence is ignored),” he said.
In the middle of 2006, for example, a brawl broke out in Batu Marmar district, Pamekasan, in which long-bladed sickles, a typical Madurese weapon, were used. Triggered by a land dispute, seven people were killed and dozens of others injured in the clash. While the public assumed that the fighting had been prompted by the Madurese’s “belligerent” culture, in reality it stemmed from an ordinary financial spat.
Dutch anthropologist Dr. Huub de Jonge noted that the survival ability of the Madurese could be compared with Raas Island inhabitants in Bali. The endurance and close social bonds among the Raas dwellers have made them successful.
“The Raas community in Bali was once alienated and even forced out when Indonesia underwent economic crisis, but this group eventually survived and succeeded,” added de Jonge.
Latief also suggested that ethnic Madurese should be aware that their harsh reaction was not the behavior proscribed by the noble values of their ancestors. This awareness should be reflected in their determination to replace the current mind-set.
“The mind-set should be built into a framework of mutual appreciation and respect among Indonesians, unification in peace, order and welfare,” he proposed.
Nevertheless, this expected fundamental change cannot come from the local community, so other parties needed to give encouragement — notably the government through its continuous attempts to realize the transformation.
“Formal education is the answer, by which Madura’s cultural values can be inherited,” said Syukur Ghazali, a scholar at Malang State University.
The high and religious cultural values that pervade the ethnic soul of Madura are not destructive, nor do they conform to the negative stereotypes so far assumed by society at large. The question is, according to Ghazali, whether education in Indonesia is capable of carrying it out.
“The fact is that we still judge educational quality by the facilities offered rather than the achievements made,” he said.
Therefore, the school curriculum should be changed by the official inclusion of the Madurese language, with an aim to provide more opportunities for ethnic Madurese to interact formally in their native tongue.
“In religious education, ways should be sought to transform religious teachings into daily behavior instead of being a mere subject,” Ghazali added.
A Madurese community figure and head of Sumenep’s Pesantren Al Amien Islamic boarding school, Muhammad Idris Jauhari, said cultural and religious education could be undertaken effectively by further empowering the existing pesantren on the island.
The Islamic schools are to maintain local traditional values, called salaf, while accommodating modern values known as kholaf to achieve the goals of education.
Pesantren are also accessible to nearly all community members, most of which charge annual boarding and tuition at no higher than Rp 250,000.
A movement to nurture the love of Madurese traditional arts is another way of inculcating the islanders’ cultural values.
D. Zawawi Imron described the importance of being Madura-conscious by reading his poem at the opening of this congress: I dare to chase high waves/To embrace the moon and pluck the stars/In the spiritual arms of my ancestors, in the heavens I vow/Madura, I’m your blood.
The artistic values of Madura are also reflected in the movements of local dances such as Alalabang and Muang Sangkal. In Sumenep alone exist about 10 traditional dance groups with a total of 600 members.
“Through this means (dance) we provide guidance for the present generation to preserve Madurese culture,” head of Pottre Koneng Studio Edy Susanto told The Jakarta Post.
Dozens of youngsters between 6 and 18 years old were practicing traditional and modern dances guided by two assistant instructors in the studio on March 11, with their parents — mostly mothers — observing.
“I’m very happy my daughter is here taking dance lessons, as most of our family like traditional arts,” said Sri Hidayati, who was accompanying 6-year-old Nafilatul Muzawaroh.
This endeavor — to reintegrate Madurese culture and consciousness as a drive toward development — is far from simple and will not be achieved by one cultural congress, but this is a step in the right direction.
It is hoped that formal education, combined with the spirit of ancestral Madurese values will eventually create a community of “new” Madurese with a reinvigorated mind-set. And through this, the negative stereotypes that have long been laid at the feet of ethnic Madurese are to be eliminated toward realizing the poet Ismail’s dream of a successful Madura.
I.D. Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Sumenep, Madura
May 16th, 2007
Ainur pedaled his bike quickly, enjoying the smooth ride on the asphalted road with the wind at his back.
“It’s like riding on an airplane,” he said.
The road Ainur and his friends use as their playground almost every afternoon is the runway of the Banyuwangi Airport, located in Blimbingsari village, Ronggojampi district, Banyuwangi regency in East Java.
The airport project, which was initially planned in 1995, has been in progress for 12 years.
Former Banyuwangi regent Purnomo Sidik initially proposed the project. He envisioned then that Banyuwangi would become the second largest city in East Java after Surabaya and would require its own airport. However, the planned construction of the airport was shelved after the country was plagued with various national problems, such as the economic crisis and several changes in national leadership.
In 2001, former Banyuwangi regent Samsul Hadi tried to revive the plan. He was fortunate because the government was planning to improve the country’s aviation sector by building a number of new airports at the time.
The Ministry of Transportation issued Decree No. 49/2003 establishing the locations of new airports. East Java was allocated with five new airports to be constructed in Malang, Banyuwangi, Sumenep (Madura), Gresik (Bawean) and Jember.
However, the government decided to only completely fund the construction of the Banyuwangi Airport from the state budget.
Banyuwangi welcomed this decision and the administration established a task force to be responsible for the project. The team then surveyed a number of locations and eventually selected a site in Blimbingsari as the appropriate place to build the airport.
Geographically, Blimbingsari was considered an ideal location due to its elevation of 20 to 30 meters above sea level and its flat topography.
Despite being located some 21 kilometers from Banyuwangi city, Blimbingsari’s coastal location near the Bali Strait was considered beneficial.
Construction of the airport commenced and in 2006 some Rp 48 billion (approximately US$5.3 million) had already been spent on the project. Of this amount, Rp 37 billion was from the regency budget and Rp 11.5 billion was from the state budget.
The funds covered costs to build the runway (900 X 23 meters), taxiway (75 X 15 meters) and apron (60 X 40 meters), in addition to operational and power generating facilities, administrative offices, workshops and departure and arrival terminals.
The project will receive another Rp 29.1 billion this year for land acquisition purposes and to build meteorology and commercial buildings.
“The runway will be extended to 1,400 meters this year,” head of the Banyuwangi Transportation Office Bambang Wahyudi told The Jakarta Post recently.
The Banyuwangi regency administration is hopeful the airport will commence operating in October this year. Merpati Nusantara Airlines has expressed its readiness to pioneer scheduled flights in and out of Banyuwangi.
Although the construction process seems to have been relatively smooth, several problems were encountered during the land acquisition process, including a sudden surge in land prices when residents became aware of the planned airport to be built in their area.
“Some residents even asked for Rp 200,000 per square meter of land, which is a big jump from the fixed price of Rp 60,000,” Bambang said.
However, the situation did not lead to mounting expenses. The Banyuwangi regency administration opted to resolve the matter via legal channels.
An emerging problem lies in the area of human resource development in Banyuwangi, which at the present time is insufficient to support running the airport.
However, the regency administration has sent three of its employees to the Curug Flying School in West Java.
“Two of them are attending the airport management course and the other one is attending the flight safety management course,” Bambang said.
Aekanu Hariyono from the Banyuwangi Tourism Office predicts the opening of the airport will boost tourism in the regency.
“Most of the time, efforts to promote tourism in the area have encountered transportation problems. I hope these will disappear after the airport starts operating,” Aekanu said.
ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Banyuwangi
May 15th, 2007
The customs and excise service has ordered the temporary halting of operations by more than 20 small-scale cigarette manufacturers in Malang, East Java, for allegedly violating excise regulations.
The closure of the companies will not only hurt their businesses but also their workers, who are estimated to number more than 15,000, the owner of one of the firms said.
“If these tobacco factories are closed, about 15,000 workers will lose their job,” said Ali Djafar, owner of the Adi Bungsu Tobacco Company, one of the 20 companies whose operations were halted, as quoted by the Detikfinance news portal Friday.
Ali said that he was baffled as to why his company had been shut by the authorities as no explanations had been forthcoming.
A copy of the closure order given to Ali states that the companies’ operations were being put on ice due to violations of the regulations. It did not specify what these were.
Ali said he suspected that the violation in question was connected with the use of the wrong type of excise stickers — an offense he claimed only merited a fine.
“Closing our operations means they are killing us,” he said.
Apart from Adi’s firm, other tobacco companies whose operations were halted included Djagung, BMW Tobacco Company, AKAs and Sangkar Mas.
Ali said he hoped the authorities would reconsider their decision as the livelihoods of a great many workers were closely intertwined with the clove cigarette firms.
Also on Friday, Ali went to the Malang city council to complain about the action of the customs service. A council member, Syaiful Rusdai, told reporters afterwards that he agreed the suspension of operations could lead to massive layoffs.
Meanwhile, Indonesian Cigarette Producers Union (GAPPRI) chairman Ismanu Soemiran told The Jakarta Post that he had still not been informed as to the reasons for the closure move by the authorities.
However, he said that he appreciated the government’s efforts to uphold the law.
“If the authorities did find violations, then this would benefit the industry as a whole as we are all suffering from illegal tobacco sales,” he said.
However, Ismanu pointed out that the likelihood was that the companies had misunderstood the regulations, given that they were only small-time players and the regulations were frequently amended.
“I would like to see the government adopting a more holistic approach, meaning that there should be more training and education. A violation can take place in the absence of intent,” he said.
May 14th, 2007
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