[Kabar-indonesia] Age in Jakarta/Investigation: Pedophile Dangers Ignored by Indonesia

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also: The Age: Terrible Cost of Trading in Children

The Age (Melbourne)
Saturday, October 7, 2006

Investigation

Australia's Alert on Pedophile Dangers Ignored

[Main report follows this introductory piece]

By Mark Forbes, Indonesia correspondent, Jakarta

AT LEAST a dozen suspected Australian pedophiles are in Indonesia and
no action is being taken against them, despite official warnings to
Indonesian authorities.

An investigation by The Age has confirmed widespread child sex abuse
continues in Indonesia, with Australians and other foreign pedophiles
operating with relative impunity. Two Australians, language teacher
Peter Smith and hotel manager Don Storen, are in custody facing
pedophile charges. A third Don Hancock, a colleague of Smith's,
committed suicide believing police were about to arrest him.

The cases of Smith and Hancock raise issues for Canberra, which
established and supervises the Indonesia Australia Language
Foundation, where they taught.

Although the foundation claims to undertake stringent background
checks, it is believed police checks that would have revealed both
were arrested on pedophile charges when teaching in Australia were not
requested. Two of their victims claim a third colleague also abused
them.

In an exclusive interview from a Jakarta jail cell, Smith defended his
activities. Asked if he committed the offences, he replied:
"Obviously, or I wouldn't be behind bars." Smith said his crimes were
"blown way out of proportion" and denied being part of a pedophile
ring.

Many street children survived by prostitution, Smith said. "It's the
only way they can get money. It's a double-sided arrangement."

Smith denies forcing any of the boys into sex, but has confessed to
molesting 50 Indonesian boys and filming pornographic videos of them.
Smith said he was sure Hancock committed suicide in August because he
believed investigators would also target him.

Indonesian police said they were not examining the links between the
pair and were treating Hancock's death as a routine suicide.

The Age has confirmed that Australian authorities have informed
Indonesian police of at least 12 Australians who are considered a risk
to Indonesian children. All had been convicted of, or investigated
for, pedophile offences in Australia.

Sources also confirmed that Hancock was put on the warning list
because of his arrest on pedophile charges while teaching in Sydney.

The main centres for Western pedophiles are Jakarta and the holiday
islands of Bali and Lombok.

Australian tourists still visit the islands for sex with children, but
several have based themselves in Lombok and Bali. In resorts on both
islands, The Age was offered children as young as 13.

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The Age (Melbourne)
Saturday, October 7, 2006

Terrible Cost of Trading in Children

By Mark Forbes, with Karuni Rompies and Amilia Rosa

Corruption and apathy among Indonesian law enforcers are helping
foster thriving pedophile networks in poverty-stricken areas of the
nation - and some of the alleged offenders are Australian.

THEY are "more beautiful than flowers", says Peter Smith of the
Indonesian boys whose photographs adorn the walls of his Jakarta home.
The faces of the boys look achingly young, but there is no
petal-softness left in their eyes. Smith is alleged to have lured them
to his home with the promise of money and work, made them pose and
masturbate, then requested sex.

Speaking through the bars of a holding cell this week, Smith, an
Australian teacher, sees himself as a victim. He admits he offended,
but attributes his arrest to media coverage. "There have been so many
untruths," he claims. "The age of the boys, the acts I committed,
things like I infected them. It's all been blown way out of
proportion."

In an adjoining room, prosecutors are fast forwarding through Smith's
home-made videos, looking for one that allegedly features sodomy. They
find film of naked boys engaged in sex acts.

Smith, 48, was arrested in August. But there is growing evidence that
across Indonesia widespread child abuse continues. In Jakarta, one
phone call can summon a broker who presents a photographic menu of
youngsters for delivery to homes or hotels for less than $50. On the
holiday islands of Bali and Lombok, The Age was offered boys and girls
as young as 13 by pimps working the streets of seaside resorts, and
children reeled off the names of several Australian "regulars".

Australian authorities have notified Indonesia that at least a dozen
other alleged pedophiles present a threat to Indonesian children - but
no action has been taken against them. Warnings have not been passed
on to local police, or the institutions employing them.

Last week, another Australian, Don Storen, appeared in court on the
Indonesian island of Lombok, charged with sexually abusing four boys
aged between 13 and 15. And in August, Don Hancock, who had worked
with Smith at the Indonesia-Australia Language Foundation (IALF) in
Jakarta (before moving to another job with the organisation in
Surabaya) committed suicide one week after Smith's arrest. Like Smith,
Hancock had previously faced pedophile charges while teaching in
Australia.

An investigation by The Age has confirmed that Smith and Hancock both
had sex with some of the same boys, producing explicit photographs and
videos. Two victims said that a third teacher from the IALF was also
involved.

Their activities are far from isolated. Incompetence, disinterest or
corruption means Indonesian authorities regularly turn a blind eye to
pedophile activity. Individual cases may be prosecuted by
under-resourced police, but there are no co-ordinated investigations
into wider pedophile rings. The nature of the links between Smith,
Hancock and any others is unlikely to be officially explored. Police
in Surabaya are treating the case as a routine suicide and have not
spoken to the Smith case's investigators in Jakarta.

Meanwhile, questions remain about how the IALF, a school established
and supervised by the Australian Government, could have employed two
Australians who had both been previously charged with, and in one case
convicted of, pedophilia. A Foreign Affairs spokeswoman yesterday
"rejected absolutely" any suggestion that it was "covering up
pedophile activities in Indonesia", while avoiding questions raised by
the Smith and Hancock cases.

PETER Smith left Australia in 1999 after being convicted in 1994 of
molesting Aboriginal pupils in a remote Northern Territory school. On
release he changed his name, received a new passport and came to
Indonesia, where he was employed as a teacher by the IALF. The head of
the Jakarta police investigation into Smith, Major Murnila, says Smith
admitted in questioning to having had 50 child victims. "We don't know
where to find them all," she says " because they are street children."

Smith is facing a 15-year jail term and believes he will be made an
example of. "The allegations of a pedophile ring are all untrue, as
are the allegations of selling porn on the internet. The boys brought
their own friends around. "The boys would mention various people's,
bules' (Indonesian slang for Westerners) names to me, none I knew.
They mentioned Australians, Japanese, Americans. I never made contact
with them, I never knew anyone else."

Smith admits, however, to knowing Hancock, and says the 55-year-old
killed himself in August believing he was the next police target. "But
I had no knowledge of Don's involvement with any of these boys."

Hancock's fears are believed to have intensified after media reports
said that some of Smith's victims had claimed abuse by a second
Australian called Don in Surabaya - Hancock had moved from Jakarta to
take over as director of studies for the IALF in Indonesia's
second-largest city. A series of frantic phone calls to Jakarta
followed. "When Peter got caught, Don was in panic," says 16-year-old
Slamet, who met Hancock at a public swimming pool when he was 10 years
old. "He asked if the situation was secure or not."

Hancock was never to know, but the local police were not even chasing
him - nor were they aware of an Australian warning that he presented a
pedophile risk. Only weeks before another Don - Don Storen - had been
arrested for allegedly abusing local boys in Lombok, where he worked
as the manager of the Sengiggi Reef Hotel. Police assumed he was the
Don whom Smith's victims had referred to.

Unaware of the confusion, Hancock visited a doctor requesting sleeping
tablets for stress and checked into a Surabaya hotel. Hotel staff
forced their way into Hancock's room the next morning, finding his
body on the bed with a plastic bag stretched over his head. Beside him
lay an empty pill bottle and a suicide note to an aunt in Sydney.

"Aces are falling all around me," Hancock wrote. "And while I'm not
directly involved, I must bear the brunt of some of them. This is a
life of misery and suffering."

IALF chief executive Geoffrey Crewes has refused to answer any
questions about Hancock and Smith, including how the pair passed
background checks he has claimed are "amongst the most stringent in
Indonesia". It is understood that the IALF did not ask Australian
police to vet the pair. An IALF statement has said security screening
would be further enhanced.

Hancock's boss in Surabaya, Alex Gough - the only IALF staff member
prepared to discuss the issue - says Hancock's suicide, and the
pedophile allegations when he taught in Australia, came as a total
surprise. "It's very unsavoury and that's part of the shock of the
whole thing for everybody here.

"From what I understand about these loathsome people who have this
disease of the mind is they compartmentalise their lives and somehow
find some moral framework where they allow this to be acceptable, and
they continue as normal practising professional people."

Smith denies his crimes were connected to the IALF and says he was no
threat to his students. "I never worked with children," he says.
"What's the threat, many of the heterosexual teachers were a greater
threat to them than I was." Child sex was "more accessible, more
acceptable" in Indonesia, Smith says, but claims the only factor in
his move in 1999 was an inability to find work in Australia after his
pedophile conviction. He denies forcing any of the boys into sex.

"If force was involved why would they see me for several years? I
think there are many street kids who survive on prostitution. They
prefer foreigners, they pay more. That's survival for them, it's the
only way they can get money. It's a double-sided arrangement," he
says.

Asked if he had damaged the boys in any way, Smith pauses: "How can
one ever say that. I don't think I have and I hope I haven't." The
boys were often delivered to Smith's home by his servant,
Christiandri, who had been inherited from Hancock when he moved to
Surabaya.

In July, Christiandri offered 13-year-old Dani and a friend cleaning
work. When they arrived, Smith allegedly told Dani to take a shower
and asked if he wanted "one on one" or a foursome.

The young pair fled, and alerted the Jakarta Centre for Street
Children's Andre Cahyadi. Seven other boys at the foundation's drop-in
centre admitted they had been Smith's victims.

Hancock had approached one of the boys, Dedi, when he was aged 13 and
invited him home. Dedi was introduced to Smith a year later. Both
videoed him performing sex acts, he told The Age.

Slamet was 10 when approached by Hancock. He says Hancock,
Christiandri and a fellow teacher, an Australian who gave the name
Brad, rented him a small room and engaged in regular sex acts. After
Hancock moved to Surabaya, he paid Slamet to travel up by train, most
recently in June. Many of the boys tell similar stories; a desperation
for money overcoming a sense of shame.

Police arrested Smith only after Cahyadi took the story to a local
newspaper. He remains frustrated at their failure to explore the links
with Don, find Brad, interview Christiandri or investigate reports
that Smith abused a large number of children in Bogor, two hour's
drive from Jakarta.

"This is a crime, these kids are already damaged," Cahyadi says.

"Foreign people are taking advantage of the kids' situation here. As
street kids they are the most vulnerable group in Jakarta, it's easy
access for people to take children, nobody cares. Street kids are
second class citizens. Peter and Don are smart enough to know this."

Cahyadi says Australia and Indonesia must take more responsibility to
protect vulnerable children. "It's a big question for Australia,
letting people like Peter Smith and Don Hancock continue to do
pedophilia in other countries. They give them passports and let them
work in powerful positions."

Cahyadi's frustration is shared by many working with Indonesian
children. Bali and Lombok continue to attract networks of pedophiles,
including Australians, according to psychologist Professor Luh Ketut
Suryani, the founder of Bali's Centre Against Sexual Assault.

She formed the organisation seven years ago, after a European man who
had sodomised several young boys received a 10-month sentence. It
remains difficult to persuade authorities to take child abuse
seriously, Suryani says. "I have to give money to police to
investigate because they say they don't have funds."

Alit Kertaratarja has been CASA's investigator in Bali for five years,
playing a constant game of cat-and-mouse with foreign pedophiles who
live on the island, or visit regularly. He has dealt with more than
100 victims in that time

"In Bali they just think positive," Kertaratarja says. "They think
foreigners bring money, they really make them welcome."

He led police to a Frenchman, Michel Heller, last year, after visiting
his house in northern Bali and finding two eight-year-old boys hidden
in a cupboard.

Heller bought children shoes and clothes, even "adopted" a
nine-year-old boy. The nine-year-old did not testify against him - his
waitress mother said Heller was helping provide for her child's
education.

In a village perched above the resort of Lovina, relatives of two
12-year-old victims also express ambivalence about Heller. Ketut
Berata, father of one of the boys, says abusing children is wrong but
"it's nice with Michel, even when he doesn't have any work for me he
will give me money, he always gave me money for my son. If he returns,
it would be OK."

Austrian Silvia Binder, who runs the Kubu Lalang Resort near Lovina,
says many pedophiles frequent the area. "This is one of the poorest
provinces and the level of education is very low. These are the places
they can buy kids very cheap," she says.

"This is a safe haven (for pedophiles). The police don't care, the
local authorities don't care, they have a very good information
network. Hardly anything is being done. The police are corrupt so you
can't report it without getting into trouble yourself."

Early this year Binder observed a European man escorting three boys
aged between eight and 12 into a nearby bungalow. She called police,
who arrived, made small talk with the bungalow's owner, said there was
no evidence and left.

Soon after the boys emerged clutching the equivalent of $10 each.

Several hotels in the area have reputations for helping pedophiles.
The Age was escorted to a large hotel near Lovina beach, where the
owner stated "you want small one, OK, she's still in school, 15, no
problem". He offered to deliver a girl from a nearby village that
night.

On the nearby island of Lombok, four children were delivered into the
hands of police, after a security guard caught them breaking into Don
Storen's hotel room. They four, aged between 13 and 15, said they were
taking items promised by Storen in return for sex.

Storen's trial is continuing, despite his lawyer negotiating with the
victims' families to drop their complaints in return for compensation.
When The Age attempted to approach the families our guide was told:
"Stop bringing people here. We want peace, we want compensation".

This week, a Foreign Affairs spokeswoman directed The Age's questions
to AusAid - the IALF trains all of AusAid's Indonesian scholarship
recipients. AusAid also refused to comment on IALF's screening
procedures or administration, stating "we are certainly not trying to
pass the buck".

These are issues for the IALF, AusAid says - but the IALF declined to speak.

A spokeswoman for the Australian Federal Police confirmed information
was disseminated to overseas law enforcement agencies about Australian
citizens suspected of pedophile activities overseas, but declined to
comment on individual cases.

The AFP had helped the Indonesian police in Smith's case and
"continues to provide assistance in relation to other ongoing
investigations", the spokeswoman said. There were concerns about the
possibility of a broader pedophile ring and the AFP was providing help
to the Indonesians "in relation to this aspect of their ongoing
investigations".

WALKING the streets of Sengiggi after dark, there are constant
approaches from men in the shadows. "You want small girl?" asks one.
"Small pussy, first time?"

Two 17-year-olds, Hannan and Ari, say they have been sleeping with
foreign men, including Storen, for four years. Now they provide
younger boys to those who visit.

About 50 children are available around the town, they say. Storen's
resort and another series of villas are known to be "accommodating" to
pedophiles. "They know where to go," Ari says.

"The police here knew about these. But you know, once the police see
money, you know what they are like."

The pair name three Australians who come from Bali about every three
months. One told them he owned a hotel in Seminyak. "He knows all the
kids, he offers a lot of assistance. He pays for their school, buys
drinks and when the kids are drunk he will take them to his hotel."

Mark Forbes is The Age's Indonesia correspondent.

sidebar: QUESTIONS REMAIN

Responses by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Indonesia
Australia Language Foundation (IALF), the Federal Government's
overseas aid program, AusAid, and Australian Federal Police (AFP) to
The Age's questions on Hancock and Smith.

1. If the IALF claims to have stringent screening mechanisms for
staff, how can at least two individuals arrested for pedophile
offences (with one having served a jail term in Australia) have been
employed by the organisation?

DFAT: Questions on this should be referred to AusAID.

AusAid: These are questions for the IALF. It would be inappropriate
for AusAID to answer.

IALF: Refused to comment.

2. Were Australian authorities aware of concerns that Smith and
Hancock were potential pedophile offenders in Indonesia and was the
IALF notified of this?

DFAT: This is a matter for the AFP.

AFP: The AFP gathers and, where appropriate, disseminates to overseas
law enforcement agencies information relating to Australian citizens
suspected of pedophilia activity overseas. It would not be appropriate
for the AFP to comment on individual cases relating to this role.

3. What co-operation has been provided by the Australian Government
and IALF to Indonesian investigations into the pedophile activities of
Smith and Hancock?

DFAT: Investigations are a matter for the AFP and the local authorities.

AFP: In relation to Mr Peter Smith, the AFP began assisting the
Indonesian National Police in relation to their investigations into
allegations of pedophile activity prior to his arrest on 5 August,
2006. The AFP continues to provide assistance in relation to other
ongoing investigations.

4. Are Australian authorities concerned about and investigating the
possibility of a broader pedophile ring?

DFAT: Investigations are a matter for the AFP.

AFP: Police are always concerned about the possibility of pedophiles
colluding and assisting each other to commit offences. It is normal
police procedure to investigate the potential for links between
suspected offenders as they come to the attention of authorities. The
AFP continues to assist the INP in relation to this aspect of their
ongoing investigations.

5. Who are the Australian officials on the IALF board and can I speak to them?

DFAT: This question should be referred to AusAID.

AusAid: There is an Australian Government representation on the board,
which is no secret. But you don't see board members of Telstra or of
James Hardie, other than the chair, providing comment to the media
because it's not their role. The IALF is no different.

6. Is the reluctance of DFAT and IALF to fully discuss these issues
indicative of an attempt to cover up pedophile activities in Indonesia
by Australians?

DFAT: The allegation that DFAT is covering up pedophile activities in
Indonesia by Australians is extremely serious and is rejected
absolutely.

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