Obama statue removed from park amid outcry

Source: Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Authorities removed a statue of Barack Obama from a park in the Indonesian capital due to a public backlash and moved it on Monday to a nearby elementary school that the U.S. president attended as a child.

The bronze statue, inspired by a childhood photograph of a 10-year-old Obama in shorts with a butterfly perched on an outstretched thumb, had been targeted by critics since it was erected in the Jakarta park last December. Detractors argued that an Indonesian hero should have been honored instead, noting that Obama still could pursue policies that hurt Indonesia's interests.

Obama, whose American mother married an Indonesian after divorcing his Kenyan father, went to school in the capital from 1967 to 1971 and is regarded fondly by most Indonesians.

Edi Kusyanto, a teacher at the affluent government school Obama attended, said the 43-inch statue would be standing in the school grounds by the time the president visits Jakarta from March 20-22.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35402169/ns/world_news-asiapacific

They should show pride that the President lived in their country.

The president isn't Indonesian.

Should we erect statues in the US for every foreign leader educated in the US?

Heck of a job, Noriega

Call me cynical, but I'd bet that some wealthy right winger cash helped things along.


Obama...as a young boy...with a butterfly on his thumb. Priceless artwork.

and he's black. Right there say's there's something very special about him that little kids can look up to.

you probly meant country.

He's the CEO of the US?

And it wouldn't surprise me if our president also did. It's not as if he's done some amazing thing to help Indonesia. Why should Indonesia look to other countries for their heroes? Sounds like they've moved the statue to a suitable location.

he attended.

If they don't want to take pride in someone who spent part of his youth there, and became, perhaps, the most powerful man in the world, it's no skin off my nose.

done some agitating. They can't stand it when any honor is given a Democrat. When Gore and Obama got he Nobel Prize, they squealed like stuck pigs.

Indonesia has no reason to honor any US president. The US has blood of hundreds of thousands of Indonesian progressives on its hands - those who were slaughtered after the CIA-engineered coup against Sukarno and the Communist Party of Indonesia. Has Obama even made verbal amends for this? Has he rectified US policies that pursue globalization in the interests of the few over the many.