Indonesian booze shortage halts Christmas fun

AFP on Yahoo ^ | 12/22/08 | Arlina Arshad

[NormsRevenge]

JAKARTA (AFP) – Drinkers in Indonesia are facing the daunting possibility of a dry festive season, with hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs across the Muslim-majority nation hit by an extreme shortage of alcohol.

Many top brands have disappeared from shelves while prices for lesser known and even poor quality labels have skyrocketed after a government crackdown on a flourishing black market in booze.

The measures are the latest in Indonesia's anti-corruption fight, with the finance ministry moving against alleged collusion between customs agents and illegal importers trying to bypass stiff import duties as high as several hundred percent.

With the flow of illicit drink largely cut off, retail prices have surged by as much as 400 percent for imported alcohol, which in Indonesia means everything except for locally brewed beer and hangover-inducing bottom-shelf concoctions usually made up of grain alcohol and artificial flavouring.

Even bottles of the cheapest Australian red wine available -- which sells for around six dollars at home -- have been marked up nearly double to 290,000 rupiah (27 dollars) while others have vanished, according to one retailer.

"In 2007, about 80 percent of the alcohol in Indonesia was being smuggled in and sold cheaply at the black market," Stephanus Yohannes Sabarno, operations director of the country's sole legal importer of alcohol, PT Sarinah, told AFP.

[NormsRevenge]

A steam roller destroyes bottles of alcohol, during a ceremony in Jakarta in 2007. Drinkers in Indonesia are facing the daunting possibility of a dry festive season, with hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs across the Muslim-majority nation hit by an extreme shortage of alcohol (AFP/File/Bay Ismoyo)

[2banana]

I was in Afghanistan for a year. No booze in public sight anywhere...but plenty of marijuana and heroin for like 50 cents a pound.

Islam - one crazy religion.

[ditto h]

Another reason to dislike Islam.

[KevinDavis]

Didn’t this nation banned alcohol at one time???

[GSP.FAN]

Yes.
It did not work .

[KevinDavis]

True, but who was the driving force....

[clee1]

The American Temperance League - a band of ultra-conservative Puritanistic Christians, excessive do-gooders, and assorted busybodies.

Think of a turn-of-the-century MADD.

[GSP.FAN]

Sharif?

Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin’ to the top
The sheik he drove his Cadillac
He went a’ cruisin’ down the ville
The muezzin was a’ standing
On the radiator grille

CHORUS
Sharif don’t like it
Rockin the casbah
Rock the casbah
Sharif don’t like it
Rockin the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric kettle drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the sherif
Had cleared the square
They began to wail

[KevinDavis]

and they are still around... I’m not fan of Islam, but we have to remember it is not just Islam worshippers who hates booze...

[Mogwai]

This is among the least of Muslim Indonesia’s faults. After all, that country committed genocide against Christian East Timorese, with, I might add, the assent of Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger.

[PotatoHeadMick]

“After all, that country committed genocide against Christian East Timorese, with, I might add, the assent of Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger.”

Hmmm, there was no “genocide” of Christians in East Timor, religion was not the issue and Ford and Kissinger had no involvement, but besides that you were almost right.

[PotatoHeadMick]

Nothing to do with Islam, everything to do with stamping out government corruption (sometimes it helps to actually read articles before commenting on them).

[Mogwai]

Did I say religion was the issue? Heavens, no. I know that when US Muslim "allies" slay Christians, religion is never the issue; it's all just an unfortunate coincidence that Muslims are doing the killing, and Christians the dying. /sarc

I'm still trying to figure out how Egypt's Coptic Christian minority are a nasty subversive (Communist?) lot, and why they deserve whatever they get from the Muslims. Perhaps someone can help me here. /sarc

[thefactor]

They took the bar! The whole f'in BAR!!!

[PotatoHeadMick]

East Timor was about territory not religion, the Muslim separatists of Acheh got a much harder time from the Indonesian army than the East Timorese, East Timor had nothing to do with religion you can pretend it did all you like it won’t change facts.

Happy Christmas.