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RR RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJS #0034/01 0710931
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R 110931Z MAR 08
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INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
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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 
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