President Bush as popular as ever in Indonesia
US President GW Bush is seeing his chickens coming home to roost. After years of lying to the American people, destroying the environment and starting illegal wars in foreign countries, he is getting responces from all over about his performance, including here in Indonesia.
Here’s more from the Jakata Post.
Anti-Bush protests escalate ahead of U.S. president’s visit
JAKARTA (AP): Thousands wound through the streets of Indonesia’s capital and gathered at mosques on Sunday to protest U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to the world’s most populous Muslim nation, some chanting “War criminal” and “You are a terrorist!”
Bush’s arrival on Monday comes amid mounting anger over U.S. policy in the Middle East and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan — seen by many here as attacks on Muslims.
Talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a close ally in Washington’s war on terror, are expected to touch on those issues and on ways in which the United States can help with poverty alleviation, education, health and investment.
Security will be tight amid warnings that the threat of an attack by al-Qaeda-linked militants had increased sharply in recent days, though it was not clear if a plot had been uncovered.
“The threat is higher,” is all Comr. Gen. Adang Firman, Jakarta’s police chief, would tell reporters.
Some 18,000 police will be deployed in the hillside town of Bogor, where the two leaders will meet, and rifle-toting soldiers and members of an elite anti-terror squad could be seenpatrolling the streets on Sunday.
Nearly 10,000 Muslim demonstrators dressed in white snarled traffic in the capital, some carrying banners that said “Punish Bush the war criminal” and “Bush: Wanted dead or alive for crimes against humanity.”
One man dragged an effigy of the American president on the road behind him.
Others gathered at the al-Azhar mosque, Jakarta’s second largest, to hear speeches by Islamic leaders denouncing Bush and U.S. foreign policy.
“Why is the U.S. backing Israel, which has bombed Palestinian and Lebanon,” Tiffatul Sembiring, president of the Justice and Prosperity Party, asked the crowd of 3,000 who spilled from the mosque into the courtyard.
“Bush is a terrorist,” he said to cheers. “He’s killed people in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation and has more Muslims than any other in the world, with some 190 million mostly moderate believers. But it is grappling with Islamic extremists and has been hit by a string of al-Qaida-linked attacks in recent years, including the 2002 bombings on Bali island that killed 202 people.
Bush’s first and only other state visit came months after those blasts and talks with then-President Megawati Soekarnoputri focused almost entirely on terrorism.
This time they will be more wide-ranging, officials from both nations said, with Bush likely to solicit Jakarta’s advice about the Middle East crisis and the North Korean and Iranian nuclear disputes.”Bush recognizes he has to change … that in order to succeed he must cooperate with friends and allies abroad,” said Jusuf Wanandi of the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Yudhoyono recognizes too that, in dealing with a politically weakened Bush, he is coming from a position of greater strength, he said.
In the days leading up to the visit, the Indonesian leader said he would call on Bush to set a timeline for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Great to Indonesians and Americans seeing eye to eye!