Mar 6 10:09 AM US/Eastern

'Obama' snacks don't go down well in Indonesia

A gimmicky snack bearing a caricature of US President Barack Obama making a peace sign has gone on sale in Indonesia, but worried consumer activists are already calling for it to be banned.

The "Obama" snack packet shows a grinning Obama making a peace sign with his right hand and spinning the globe like a basketball on the fingers of his left hand.

It also bears a peace symbol and the word "peace," along with a teaser suggesting that if you are lucky you might win a bonus.

The Indonesian Consumer Foundation has called on the government to investigate, saying the snack is defamatory to President Obama and potentially harmful to children's health.

"What's the aim of using such an image? It's defamation and the producer should be investigated," Foundation head Indah Suksmaningsih said.

Each 500-rupiah (four-cent) packet of "Obamas" contains a small plastic toy which is "unhygienic" and could be mistaken as food by infants, said foundation legal affairs officer Sularsi, who only uses one name.

"We urge the government to investigate the product, which might have a dubious permit," he said.

"Obamas" hit the streets recently in the West Java city of Bandung.

President Obama lived in the Indonesian capital Jakarta from 1967 to 1971 after his mother divorced his Kenyan father and married an Indonesian man.

This childhood connection -- and his pledge to break with the foreign policy of the Bush administration -- has made him hugely popular in the Southeast Asian country of some 234 million people.

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