Disasters aplenty but some light ahead
The past one year saw various disasters hit the country, starting with the horrific earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Aceh and Nias island in North Sumatra and including the latest terrorist attacks on Bali. On a brighter note, significant progress was recorded this year in the fight against corruption with several major suspects already convicted and sent to jail. However, the authorities' failure to identify the masterminds behind the murder of human rights advocate Munir added to the country's poor human rights record.
Photo: A: Bali
Reuters/Adrees Latief
BLAST SCENE: A police officer looks at one of two bomb blast sites marked with red flags at Bali's Jimbaran Beach. Suicide bombers were behind three attacks on the resort island on Oct. 1 that killed 20 innocent people, police said.
Photo B: Ball
JP/ID Nugroho
LURING VOTERS: A local election committee member tries to kick a ball into the mini goal at a polling station in Surabaya, East Java, in a bid to entice voters to cast their ballots. The committee offered cassava snacks for every voter who managed to score a goal. The first ever direct local elections were held across Indonesia starting in June in Kutai Kertanegara regency. The polls generally passed off peacefully, with only minor disputes sparked by contested results.
PHOTO C: Aceh
JP/Apriadi Gunawan
ACEH DESTRUCTION: Meulaboh, the capital of West Aceh regency, was left flattened by the Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake and subsequent tsunami that destroyed almost all of its houses, infrastructure and public facilities. Reconstruction work has been proceeding at a slow place in Meulaboh and other areas across tsunami-ravaged Aceh, despite the government already receiving huge amounts of money from donors and other countries.
PHOTO D: KPU
JP/Mulkan Salmona
SMILING NO MORE: General Elections Commission (KPU) chairman Nazaruddin Syamsuddin is escorted by policemen into a courtroom in Jakarta. The Anticorruption Court jailed him for seven years and ordered him to repay Rp 5 billion (US$500,000) in public funds that he illegally received when heading the commission, which organized last year's general elections.
PHOTO E: Munir
JP/Mulkan Salmona
RIGHTS TRAGEDY: Activists hold up posters bearing images of noted human rights campaigner Munir, who was murdered in September 2004, during a protest to demand his killers be brought to justice. Earlier this month, the Central Jakarta District Court sentenced pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto to 14 years in jail for his role in the murder case. However, the trial failed to identify the masterminds.
PHOTO F: Aceh
JP/R. Berto Wedhatama
NO MORE GUNS: International peace monitors receive the last of the required firearms from former insurgents in Banda Aceh, Aceh. The event on Dec. 21 marked the end of disarmament by the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) as required under the peace deal signed in August in Helsinki, Finland.