Deporting the Messenger

-#include virtual="/time/asia/2004/includes/thisweek.txt"-->For four years, the Jakarta branch of the International Crisis Group (ICG) has provided one of the clearest windows into the troubled state of Indonesia. The Brussels-based ICG's mission is to use research to help prevent violent conflict, and it has been in the right place at a turbulent time: American human-rights activist Sidney Jones, head of the organization's Southeast Asian office, and a handful of expatriate and Indonesian researchers have produced 39 uncompromising reports on subjects ranging from bloody conflicts in Aceh, Ambon and East Timor to the origins of Islamic terror in the region.

But Jakarta has apparently decided it has had enough of the ICG's warts-and-all reports. Last week, the government refused to renew work permits for Jones and an expatriate staff member. Indonesia's powerful intelligence czar, A.M. Hendropriyono, told the press that Jones' reports had tarnished the image of the country and that "many were untrue." Jones, who has written for TIME, says she's not sure what has upset Hendropriyono's intelligence agency, known by its Indonesian acronym BIN. "The accusations against us keep changing," she says. "First it was our reports on Aceh and Papua. The latest [claim] is I'm selling information to foreign countries, which is completely ridiculous."

Hendropriyono told reporters last Thursday that up to 20 other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are being closely monitored by security authorities. "Should we find that these people are continuing to sell out their country, we may return to the old measures," he said, referring to the days of strongman Suharto, during which NGOs were tightly controlled and their workers routinely jailed. As for Jones, whose visa expires on June 10, she continues to press for a renewal but isn't hopeful. Still, she says, even if she's obliged to move to another country in the region, "That's certainly not going to stop me from writing about Indonesia."