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Jokowi promises investors security
Teach peace: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (third right) attends an iftar event at the State Palace in Jakarta on Friday
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each peace: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (third right) attends an iftar event at the State Palace in Jakarta on Friday. During the gathering, attended by Indonesian Military commander Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto (left), Regional Representatives Council (DPD) Speaker Oesman Sapta Odang (second left), Istiqlal Mosque grand imam Nasaruddin Umar (third left), the President’s special envoy for interfaith dialogue and civil affairs, Din Syamsuddin (second right), and House of Representatives (DPR) Speaker Bambang Soesatyo, the President called for the deradicalization of educational institutions. (Antara/Wahyu Putro)
In an apparent gesture to ensure business confidence, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has reiterated his commitment to fight terrorism as he voiced support for reviving a special military unit.
Speaking alongside his Cabinet ministers during a breaking-the-fast event with businesspeople on Friday evening, Jokowi expressed resentment toward a “vile terrorist ideology” that had forced families and children to become perpetrators, referring to recent terror attacks in Surabaya and Sidoarjo, East Java.
“The government and the House of Representatives are bending over backwards to ensure that the terrorism bill is completed,” he said in his speech. “And the government is also in the process of establishing a Koopsusgab [Joint Special Operations Command] to provide security.”
It seems to be confirming Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko’s claim that Jokowi had expressed his consent to bringing back to life the joint command tasked with countering terrorism.
The team, which included and will again include personnel of the Army’s Special Forces (Kopassus), the Navy’s Denjaka specialized squad and the Air Force’s Bravo 90 special force, would be on standby and ready to be mobilized whenever terror threats emerged, Moeldoko said.
The joint force was first established under Moeldoko when he served as the Indonesian Military (TNI) commander in 2015. The special command’s operations, however, were suspended under the leadership of Moeldoko’s successor, Gen (ret.) Gatot Nurmantyo.
On Friday, Jokowi stressed that special military operations would only be conducted in situations exceeding the capacity of the National Police as a “preventive measure”, which he claimed was “more important than repressive action”.
“The best preventive [measure] is to clean up education institutions — from kindergarten level to college and public spaces and forums — from misguided ideology, which terrorism is,” he said.
Terror attacks on Sunday and Monday in Surabaya and Sidoarjo have claimed the lives of 25 people, including the suicide bombers and some of their children, and injured at least 41. Attempted bombings were also reported at two other churches on Sunday morning, where bombs failed to detonate.
Hours after the church attacks, a bomb went off prematurely at a low-cost apartment building in Wonocolo, Sidoarjo, killing three members of a suspected terrorist’s family: the father, the mother and their eldest son.
At a seemingly coincidental moment, Indonesia is facing a lot of external pressure as the rupiah continues to weaken amid a stronger US dollar, forcing Bank Indonesia (BI) to increase its policy rate — the seven-day reverse repo rate — by 25 basis points to 4.5 percent on Thursday evening.
Foreign funds are pulling out from the emerging market as United States’ Treasury bill yields continue to increase amid investors’ bullish sentiment over the prospects of the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates more than expected this year.
At least Rp 37.18 trillion (US$2.64 billion) in portfolio investment has been withdrawn from the domestic financial market from Jan. 2 to May 11, according to data from Bloomberg.
As BI had ended its easing stance, there may be no other way to push Indonesia’s economy, which grew by 5.06 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, other than boosting fiscal stimulus to help drive consumption, said Rosan P. Roeslani, chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), after attending Friday’s event with Jokowi.
“We heard that Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad seeks to scrap the 6 percent goods and services tax [GST]. We don’t ask for that [from Jokowi’s administration], but we hope for a temporary [tax] incentive to lift purchasing power,” he said.
Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara, an economist at the Institute for the Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), said the government should use fiscal incentives to boost industrialization, which would help reduce Indonesia’s high reliance on exports of natural resource commodities.
