APSN Banner

Indonesia warns Japanese media over coverage of unrest in West Kalimantan

Source
Agence France Presse - February 17, 1997

Jakarta – The Indonesian government has issued a warning to Japanese media correspondents here about their coverage of recent ethnic unrest in West Kalimantan province.

"We are very worried that these mass media are being used by certain groups which do not want to see Indonesia progress," said a letter to the journalists, dated Friday and obtained Monday.

The letter was sent by the information ministry's director of journalists' development, Akhmadsyah Naina.

"Therefore, we hope that you will be more careful in covering the recent situation in Indonesia," it added.

"Hopefully your coverage will not eliminate the trust and friendship that the Japanese society has for Indonesia."

The letter enclosed a clipping of a report in a Jakarta daily about an interview by the official Antara news agency with the deputy president of the Japan-Indonesia Friendship Organization, Shizuo Miyamoto.

Miyamoto accused major Japanese dailies of having "endlessly" reported on unrest in Indonesia in recent months and having "dramatized" the problems.

"The bad reports about Indonesia in the Japanese mass media are more or less spread by agents of the Japanese Communist Party," Miyamoto was quoted as saying.

Japanese media organizations Monday said they were weighing up the letter of warning. "This kind of matter may be handled first by the local association of Japanese correspondents," said an official at the Tokyo secretariat of the Japanese Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association.

"We might react if they were barred from covering news events or if their news-gathering activities were hindered. But at this stage, this matter should be handled by each company," the official said.

He added that the council grouping foreign editors of Japanese media organizations was not considering any action at this stage.

An editor at the foreign news desk of the Mainichi Shimbun said Japanese correspondents in Jakarta discussed the issue Monday and planned to make a joint reply to the ministry on Tuesday.

"The contents of the letter are contrary to the truth. They will make a reply to the information ministry tomorrow," he said.

All major Japanese news agencies and dailies have correspondents in Jakarta.

Local military authorities in West Kalimantan, meanwhile, have stopped five western correspondents from leaving the provincial capital of Pontianak to prevent them from travelling to the area of unrest.

The correspondents, who arrived in Pontianak at the end of last week, have been warned by military authorities not to leave the city "for their own security," one of them told AFP by telephone.

The journalists, who did not want to be identified, were trying to get to the northwest of the province where witnesses have reported the worst confrontations.

But they were stopped at one of several army road blocks and told to return to Pontianak and not to leave the city, unless they were returning to Jakarta.

Foreign press accredited in Indonesia are usually free to travel across the country, with the exception of two provinces – northern Aceh and eastern Irian Jaya – and the disputed territory of East Timor.

Indonesia has been hit by a string of religious and ethnic clashes in recent months, which have claimed scores of lives and left hundreds of buildings damaged.

The latest unrest in West Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, saw violent conflicts between the indigenous Dayak population and migrants from Madura island, near Java.

The violence, which broke out in late December, has left hundreds dead and forced thousands to flee their homes, sources have said.

Country