Sydney newspaper reopens bureau here

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)