Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

One of the very scarce reports on what is going on in prisons in Papua came earlier from Oswald Iten, a journalist with the Swiss quality paper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, who was imprisoned in Jayapura for twelve days in December 2000. He had allegedly violated the conditions related to his tourist visa (he had been making photographs and since he was a journalist that counted as working without a work permit). I can’t recall that that report got much attention in this country...

Mrs. Clinton went on: "There is a pent-up desire on the part of the United States government under the Obama administration, as well as partners around the world, that we begin to work together to solve a lot of our common problems...

Many commentators in Australia have taken an even more negative and distorted view of Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries, simply because of East Timor. Unlike the Indonesians' colonial master, the Dutch, the Portuguese are, ahem, "wogs", but unlike the Italians and the Greeks, they are not as well represented in Australia, or have as high a profile.

If any continuous theme runs through [Paul Keating's] career, it is power: the acquisition of it, the exercise of it, the company of it, being on the side of it, loss of it, and now reminiscence of it. I cannot put it more appropriately, even though my grandmother once told me never to use language: power has been to Keating as shit to a blowfly.

Greg Sheridan, writing for the Oz, describes the Suharto as "an authentic giant of Asia, a nation-builder, a dictator, a changer of history" My own analysis is that he has done more harm to Indonesia than good. He did create short term stability for the country, but on the fundamental issues that are vital to the long term prosperity, democracy and survival of the country, he has come out short, very short.

Australians have a fear of Indonesia that is only equalled by Indonesian’s fear about Australia. The major difference is that Indonesians know far more about Australian politics than Australians know about Indonesia.

Isn't it weird. Amrozi is about to be shot dead as the Indonesian courts decide they can't even look at the nation's Constitutional protection of human rights re the Bali Nine plea not to be shot dead - because they're foreigners. I, for one, will never forgive this government for handing over our bloody stupid, off the rails young people for arrest, knowing Indonesia had the death penalty for such offences. Yet there is silence from Labor. Where is Labor's promise to never ever let this happen again?

Hello. Here is the Australian Law Council's statement yesterday on the death penalty debate. The recent history of this issue is very interesting, as is its prominence now. I'll try to write something later. 

Later I saw another old lady asking police if she could go to David Jones.  They told her it would be always there and it would be best if she went home. Kindly old ladies being discouraged from David Jones?  That's not the Australia I grew up in!  I saw the reassuring sign that "it costs no more to shop at David Jones" but security guards blocked me from leaving via the Elizabeth Street doors.  How bizarre.

"Old forests usually have deeper more complex root systems. They capture rain and transport it deep into the soil and store it, they are not putting on a huge amount of bulk, they have done most of their growing, so they store more water than they use. The soil in such a forest is less compacted there is an increase in humic acid and as a result the soil holds more water. In dryer times when there is less rain, the old tree root systems are able to move the water up through the soil. But what is truly remarkable is that this water actually makes its way into creeks and streams and flows on down the rivers. So one of the main functions of an old forest is that it maintains water supply in dry times. It amazes me that the Government agencies still haven’t worked out that there is a connection between the groundwater and the surface water." Susie Russell

At Margo's suggestion, this contribution to Aid for Who? is worth a separate debate / conversation on Indonesia: "We could save ourselves an awful lot of billions of dollars, and arguably put them to far better use, than investing them in this ‘relationship’."

"Indonesia recently witnessed a pair of dramatic releases: one a radical Muslim cleric from prison, the other a saucy men’s magazine from its editors. Both Abu Bakar Ba’asyir and Playboy are now out on the streets and in the public eye, but neither is as significant as its opponents claim. Their releases and the public debate to which they have contributed, however, cut straight to the heart of the ongoing struggle for Indonesia’s self-identity – a struggle which has taken a dramatic turn of late. ": Nathaniel Myers

"What amazed me most during the UNTEA period was that the Indonesians, after a dozen years of listening to Sukarno's rhetoric about the burning Indonesian desire to liberate their Papuan brothers from their largely imaginary colonial yoke, seemed on nothing so intent as to subject these brothers to a real one. Instead of treating the people with tolerance and understanding, declarations of loyalty (through manifestoes, processions and flag raisings) were forced out of them through intimidation that was from time tot time reinforced by violence - or, in the case of some key figures, by blandishments such as the red carpet treatment in a free trip to Jakarta." Arie Brand

"Dr Abdoh, the Administrator of Papua during the UNTEA administration, was, as we saw, very concerned about anything that might possibly be construed as insulting to Indonesians. He showed considerably less concern about the rights of Papuans, rights the UNTEA administration was supposedly there to protect." Arie Brand

"Early in 1963 Harold Luckham, former British colonial civil servant in Malaya, and then Divisional Commissioner for UNTEA in Fak fak, Papua, got word that his services were no longer appreciated and that he should arrange for his departure. Why was this? The UNTEA administration was, after all, supposed to finish on the first of May that year. Harold Luckham was suspected of the ultimate offence in the UNTEA period: being 'anti-Indonesian'. That is he had reacted as a reasonable human being to unreasonable provocations." Arie Brand

"Those first Indonesian military failures were however neither a reliable indicator for Indonesia's ultimate military plans nor for its capacity to execute these. Soviet and American supplies of new weaponry and the training of Indonesian military personnel in the use of these seemed to turn the military balance in Indonesia's favour." Arie Brand

"The image of the Papuans as a bunch of savage, stone age and illiterate tribes persisted in American ambassadorial reporting from Indonesia right up to the so-called 'act of free choice' in 1969 and helped to gloss over the fact that this so-called plebiscite was an obvious fraud." Arie Brand

"Though the idea of self-determination had been an important factor in keeping Papua, at any case for the time being, out of what was then still the United States of Indonesia, the Dutch were in the first half of the fifties far too optimistic about the time they would have to prepare the Papuans for this. They were thinking in terms of gradual evolution that would require a few generations. In 1954 the New Guinea Government opened a School for Civil Administration in what was then Hollandia (now Jayapura)." Arie Brand

"Was it Sukarno who maintained the conflict or the conflict that maintained Sukarno? Some observers, varying from the one-time American Ambassador to Indonesia, Howard Palfrey Jones, to ex-Dutch Prime Minister and High Commissioner in Indonesia, Louis Beel, have maintained the latter. The Papua issue, they say, was giving Sukarno his oxygen, kept him in the saddle and gave him wellnigh dictatorial powers. However this may be, conflict there was." Arie Brand

"The negotiations that year that the RTC-agreements called for remained utterly futile. The proposal of Indonesia was that sovereignty would be immediately transferred to that country with a vague promise of some kind of autonomous status for Papua in the future. The counter proposal of the Dutch was to transfer sovereignty to the then still existing Union between Indonesia and the Netherlands, leaving the de facto administration in Dutch hands, and to continue negotiations under the aegis of, for example, the United Nations." Arie Brand

"It was now certain that the transfer of sovereignty would in Dutch parliament not get the two third majority required if Papua was not, somehow, excepted from this transfer. The question Papua was therefore put last on the agenda for final negotiations with Indonesia and it almost wrecked the outcome of this so-called Round Table Conference. Both parties decided finally that the status of this region would be decided within a year in further negotiations. For the time being it remained under Dutch sovereignty. The Dutch had however not been able to obtain self-determination for some other regions." Arie Brand

"The fact that Sukarno and Hatta had, in Saigon, a meeting with the Japanese commander in chief, Marshall Terauchi, a few weeks before the declaration of independence of the 17th August 1945, seemed suspicious. This could suggest that the creation of the 'Republic' was in fact a political manoeuvre, a last hurrah, of the Japanese. It is of course true that the 'Commission for the Preparation of the Independence of Indonesia' was formed under Japanese auspices." Arie Brand

"One argument made in favour of the West Papuans is a simple one, although it may not be a 100% correct: How can Australia send its soldiers to the other side of the world to free Iraqis from a brutal regime when West Papuans, so close to Australia, suffer still in their cry for freedom?" Darryl Mason

"The federalist idea came naturally to the Dutch because their own state had had from the beginning a more or less federalist organisation through the so-called ‘Unie van Utrecht’. Dutch political history of the nineteenth century revolves partly around the attempt to regain this ‘federalist’ set up after the centralising policies of King William I. If a ‘federalism’ of sorts seemed a natural set up for such a tiny country as the Netherlands, this should hold a fortiori for an independent vast archipelago state as Indonesia." Arie brand

"Though about two thirds of the pre-Second World European population of Indonesia was of mixed ancestry, only a minority of those were regarded as true Indo-Europeans. These were in the first place people of whom one of the parents (generally the mother) was fully Indonesian. They were, if they had been officially recognised by their European parent, classified as Europeans. This was not in all respects an advantage. For one thing, they were not allowed to own land, a right that colonial legislation had reserved for truly indigenous Indonesians (land exploiting companies got around this through long term leases)." Arie Brand

"It is well known that presently the region with its rich mineral resources is one of the most important income spinners for the Indonesian government (and the Indonesian army). That was entirely different in Dutch times. The scanty knowledge about mineral resources then encouraged virtually no one to invest in a region the future of which was so uncertain." Arie Brand

"Your appointment strengthens my confidence that still outstanding serious issues raised with your predecessor, Senator Robert Hill, and members of the Australian Defence Forces, will now be quickly resolved." John Richardson, writing to new Defence Minister Brendan Nelson

"With the sentencing of members of the heroin trafficking conspiracy in Indonesia this week we are seeing a re-run, with variations, on what has become a familiar tune. One that began with Schapelle Corby in early 2005 and became full tragedy with the murder of Van Nguyan in Singapore in December last year. Namely the chorus of commentary around young Australians overseas and drugs." Tony Phillips

"If you have lived in such a society all your life, it is easier to presume every other place is the same. It is therefore little wonder that so many Arab and Muslim groups are calling for such crazy things as a ban by governments on the publication of the cartoons." Irfan Yusuf

"If Australians think they are an open, multicultural and pluralistic society, they should understand that our multiculturalism is child's play compared to the multiculturalism we witness in this, the world's largest Muslim country." Irfan Yusuf