Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
by members of the Islamic militant organization Jemaah Islamiah (after hugely public and
drawn-out trials, three men were executed in November 2008 and in 2012 bombmaker Umer
Patek was sentenced to twenty years in prison for his role in the attacks). Further bombings
in Jakarta in 2003, 2004 and 2009 and Jimbaran and Kuta in 2005 emphasized to Indonesi-
ans and the wider world that fundamentalist forces represent an ongoing threat in the largest
Muslim nation in the world.
Whatever Megawati's failings, she did lay the foundations for Indonesia's first-ever
direct
presidential election
in 2004, in which 114 million voters across almost fourteen thousand
islands voted her out of the job in favour of
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
, commonly known
as
SBY
.
With 61 percent of the vote Yudhoyono was a popular winner and outside the country he
received international approval for his peace deal with the Aceh separatists. He was re-elec-
ted with another landslide victory in 2009, as Indonesia weathered the global financial crisis
far better than many of its neighbours and he promised continued attacks against corruption.
The country also received some historical closure in 2013, after the Netherlands apologised
for summary executions carried out by its army in the 1940s.
However, significant challenges remain ahead for Indonesia. The separatist struggle in West
Papua remains unresolved, and inflation, unemployment, corruption, terrorism and nepotism
concern every Indonesian - of whom more than thirteen percent live below the poverty line,
with one estimate suggesting that almost half a million Balinese farmers are living in poverty.
