Sydney newspaper reopens bureau here

JAKARTA (JP): The Sydney Morning Herald has reopened its bureau in Jakarta after a 14-year hiatus which was caused in part by a long running feud between the Indonesian government and the Australian media.

Louise Williams, formerly the Herald's foreign editor, is now the correspondent in Jakarta. Williams is also representing the Herald's sister newspaper, the Melbourne Age.

The Herald is the latest Australian media establishment to reopen its bureau in Jakarta in recent years following the government's more relaxed policy toward Australian journalists working in Indonesia.

The Australian Associated Press, ABC, the Australian and the Australian Financial Review were among the first to reopen.

"It has been a difficult process," Williams told The Jakarta Post by phone. She said that she came to Jakarta to submit the application the first time in 1989.

Williams, one of the Herald's senior journalists, has served foreign correspondent stints in Manila, between 1986 and 1988, and in Bangkok between 1989 and 1991.

She has visited Indonesia on a number of assignments, including the series of Cambodian peace talks known as the Jakarta Informal Meeting process in the late 1980s.

The seesaw relation between the government and the Australian media took its worst turn in 1986 when Jakarta imposed a blanket ban on all Australian journalists. The move came after a series of articles in the Sydney Morning Herald detailing the businesses of President Soeharto's children. The government said the articles were offensive.

Last year, the Australian media had a hand in pushing the Indonesian government to withdraw the appointment of an Army general as its ambassador only days before his scheduled departure to Canberra. (emb)