GORONTALO: CORN, CORRUPTION AND THE PROMISE OF

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SURABAYA 000034 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, INR/EAP, EB E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAGR ID ECON PGOV SUBJECT: GORONTALO: CORN, CORRUPTION AND THE PROMISE OF INDEPENDENCE SURABAYA 00000034 001.2 OF 002 This message is sensitive but unclassified. Please protect accordingly. ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Consulate General Surabaya Pol/Econ officer and Pol/Econ Assistant met with Mr. Elnino Husein, activist and journalist of Tribun Gorontalo, and Mr. Arrusdin Bone, board member of Gorontalo Golkar Party and director of the NGO, LP2G, during a recent visit to the province. In contrast to our meetings with provincial officials, the wide-ranging discussion suggests that there is more to Gorontalo than corn and progress. Once part of predominantly Christian North Sulawesi, Gorontalo's overwhelmingly Muslim population now feels challenged to make the most of it. However, the euphoria of a newly independent identity and a competent governor has been leavened by a realization that Gorontalo faces the same challenges of corruption and poor planning that face provinces across Indonesia. End Summary. An Independent Cultural and Religious Identity -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Ninety-seven percent of Gorontalo population is ethnic Gorontalan and ninety percent of Gorontalans are Muslims. These factors contribute to a sense of homogeneity and cohesion, but can also sometimes lead to the exclusion of the remaining 10% of Christians and Buddhists from the fabric of daily life. Many but not all of these Christians and Buddhists are Sino-Indonesians. Gorontalo City's celebrations of the end of the Chinese New Year festival "Cap Go Meh" were the largest in recent memory, according to all we spoke with. Despite this apparent sense of acceptance for religious and ethnic minorities in this overwhelmingly Muslim province, Elnino said that Muslim converts to Christianity must leave Gorontalo or face shunning by the extremely close knit community. Conversions usually take place as the result of marriage and few families can abide the scandal of religious intermarriage. Converts generally have to leave Gorontalo for Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi, or elsewhere in Indonesia. ¶3. (SBU) Even while it was part of North Sulawesi, Gorontalo always had a separate identity, according to Elnino and Arrusudin. The longstanding sense of separateness tied to cultural and linguistic differences were key factors leading to �A;demands for separation. Elnino used one vignette to illustrate the plight of educated Gorontalans and the consequences of their former isolation from the North Sulawesi capital. Coveted civil service jobs would be advertised in Manado, but official word of the opening would often arrive in Gorontalo days after the application deadline. In separate conversations, students at Gorontalo State University told us that work as a civil servant was still the goal of the vast majority of graduates. They said that competition for civil service jobs is still fierce. ¶4. (SBU) Travel to Manado from Gorontalo to conduct official business perpetually reinforced Gorontalo's outsider status in North Sulawesi society. Excluded from ready access to a wide range of public services, Gorontalans' existing sense of cultural and religious separateness was systematically reinforced by neglect, according to Elnino and Arrusudin. They observed that this sense of isolation is being overcome only with difficulty. While cultural independence has come quickly, economic independence and development has proven more difficult. Still Dependant, Despite the Rhetoric -------------- --- ¶5. (SBU) While there is a lot of talk about development and business in Gorontalo, the province is still kept afloat by its regional budget allocation from Jakarta, said Arrusudin. He added that, despite all of Governor Fadel Muhammed's talk of strategy, the provincial government still fails to plan strategically in formulating the budget. This lack of a long-term strategy means that provincial development lurches from discrete project to project. These projects are catnip to politicians and civil servants, but simply means more corruption, said Arrusudin. This is best seen in the way the province chooses to develop the agricultural sector. Officials focus on capital intensive physical facilities and procurement, high profile line items designed to bring a lot of income to officials in search of a bribe. Gorontalo's strength as a cohesive and close-knit community bound by family ties is also its weakness --nepotism and corruption make easy inroads, and reform becomes that much more difficult. SURABAYA 00000034 002.2 OF 002 ¶6. (SBU) In one example of this bloated, project-based approach to development, Arrusudin told us that the provincial government allocated Rp. 45 billion (USD 4.9 million) for a canal project in 2008, while in 2007 it was allocated only Rp. 20 billion (USD 2.2 million) Arrusudin is familiar with both plans and said that the original estimate of Rp. 20 billion was more than enough to complete the canal. Without even the pretense of a detailed feasibility study, the near-doubling of the budget seemed clearly intended as graft, according to Arrusudin. In another instance, the province set aside Rp. 1.3 billion (USD 140,000) for research on conserving ecologically fragile Limboto Lake. Despite the fact that NGOs and academic institutions have already done a great deal of research on the subject, the province opted to start studying the issue from scratch. ¶7. (SBU) Paradoxically, too close cooperation between NGOs and the provincial government seems to have become an issue. Some parts of the NGO community have become co-opted, according to Elnino and Arrusdin. The project driven nature of Gorontalo development, coupled with the small population and strong family ties, means that NGOs often have many informal affiliations with the government and are unable to navigate the inevitable conflicts of interest. This has effectively decreased the number of opinion leaders outside of government, effectively co-opting NGOs. For example, one woman activist in Gorontalo who runs an NGO working on women's issues also serves as the secretary to the Governor. SIPDIS Gorontalo Media -- Local Yes, Independent, No -------------- -------------- ¶8. (SBU) While Manado once set the cultural and political direction for Gorontalo, the province's distinct identity is now reinforced by new Gorontalo-based newspapers, television and radio whose focus on local news reinforces a sense of uniqueness. The Gorontalo Post and Tribun Gorontalo are owned by the Jawa Pos Group but the policies of local newspapers under the Jawa Pos are highly dependent on local management. According to Elnino, Executive Editor at Tribun Gorontalo, the editors of both Gorontalo Post and Tribun Gorontalo are "pro government instead of pro public". For example, Elnino said he had once floated the idea for a special column in Tribun Gorontalo featuring investigative reports in the public interest. The idea was quashed by higher management, not because they disagreed, but because the provincial government had already paid for the column space, at least according to what Elnino was told. In 2007, the price of a full page in Gorontalo Post and Tribun Gorontalo was Rp. 35 million (USD 3,800) annually and Rp. 96 million (USD 10,400) per year, respectively. MCCLELLAND