•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Days before US President Barack Obama is due to arrive in Indonesia, Armed Forces Chief Gen. Djoko Santoso on Wednesday said that new security concerns had been discovered.

“We have detected vulnerabilities and security disturbances,” Djoko said at the Presidential Palace in Central Jakarta, declining to elaborate further on the natures of the disturbances.

He said the implementation of security procedures during Obama’s visit would be carried out by both the police and military.

Several demonstrations have been planned ahead of Obama’s arrival. Several hard-line Islamic groups, including Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, have publicly opposed the visit, while religious leaders remain divided in their views.

According to state-run news agency Antara, Obama is scheduled to meet with a number of Islamic leaders during his visit.

Over the past few days, activists from Hizbut Tahrir and the Campus Propagation Institute, a conservative Muslim student organization, have held demonstrations across the country to protest Obama’s visit.

Alkathat, a Hizbut Tahrir member, told Antara his group rejected Obama because of his policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and because of his failure to repair relations between the Muslim world and the West.

He said that Obama had failed to live up to the promises he had delivered during his election campaign.

More moderate groups, however, have welcomed the visit, including Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Muslim organization. NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi said Obama had helped to mend the rift between the United States and the Islamic world created by former US President George W Bush.

Hasyim, who is also president of the World Conference on Religions for Peace, said Indonesia, as the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, could serve as a gateway to other Muslim countries, particularly in the Middle East.

While Obama’s foreign policy has generally been encouraging, Hasyim said it remained to be seen what would happen with major stumbling blocks such as the United States’ traditional support for Israel.

“Whether Obama will be able to control Israel, we will see,” he told Antara.

“As president of the US, a democratic country, Obama plays a major but not all-encompassing role, as there is a legislative body limiting his steps.”

Even the notoriously anti-Western Islam Defenders Front (FPI) appears to have embraced “Obamania,” with one senior member saying the group welcomed any visitors as long as they were not here on a “neo-liberal mission.”

Embong Mustafa said the FPI would even be willing to meet the US president if invited.

“We have no problem with Barack Obama’s visit,” he said.

“We’ve never rejected anybody planning to come here except those on a neo-liberal mission.”