Dessy Sagita, Indonesia – A blog that appears to emulate the controversial WikiLeaks site – Indoleaks.org – appeared on Friday with what are claimed to be copies of confidential documents.
Intermittently accessible, the Web site reportedly generated 50,000 downloads of the documents it published, from investigations into the murder of activist Munir Said Thalib to the disastrous Sidoarjo mudflow and a transcribed conversation between former presidents Suharto and Richard Nixon.
However, the government claimed not to be concerned by the Web site. "Our stance is clear. We will only monitor this site to find out what kind of information it will release," communication ministry spokesman Gatot S. Dewa Brata said.
On Munir, a document labeled as an official report dated June 23, 2005, recommended that further investigations be conducted into the roles of former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief A.M. Hendropriyono and former BIN official Muchdi Purwoprandjono in the activist's murder. Muchdi was tried and eventually acquitted, but Hendropriyono was never tried.
The document regarding the Lapindo mudflow was titled: "Preliminary report on the Factors and Causes in the Loss of Well Banjar Panji-1 for The Directors of Medco Energi International."
Written by a consultant, identified as Simon Wilson, for TriTech Petroleum Consultants Limited, the document stated that Lapindo's actions were "incompetent and in contravention of good well control practice."
A Google search, however, showed the same document had already been uploaded on Aljazeera.net in 2009.
Another uploaded document was a conversation, dated May 26, 1970, at the White House in Washington, DC, between former US President Nixon, former State Secretary Henry Kissinger and former President Suharto.
Nixon had asked Suharto about the strength of the revolutionary communist group, to which Suharto replied: "Tens of thousands of [the communists] have been interrogated and placed in detention."
Gatot said on Friday it was unlikely that the site operators would be charged under the 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction Act (ITE). "We certainly don't want to be accused of preventing people from accessing public information," he said.