As violence escalates in West Papua, Indonesian political leaders have again turned to the military to address what is, at base, a political issue while West Papuan leaders call for dialogue without response. Neither approach is likely to be any more successful at ending the conflict than they have been for the past half century. […]
Tag Archives: military
Myanmar’s recent military coup was a shock, especially for subscribers to the view that democracy is inevitable. But it was not, for anyone who has watched the country, a surprise. The country’s National League for Democracy (NLD, headed by the revered Aung San Suu Kyi, recorded a strong, 60 per cent, majority in the country’s […]
The arrest and expulsion of Australian journalist Rebecca Henschke from the Indonesian province of (West) Papua again highlights the sensitivities of the Indonesian military, the TNI over the territory. It also shows, again, that while Papua is more open to journalists than in the past, that openness remains limited, reflecting the TNI’s deep paranoia about […]
I have been sent a link by an Indonesian acquaintance about being accused, on CNN Indonesia, by a senior former Indonesian general of being involved in, or behind, recent unrest in West Papua. https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20171215172134-12-262710/akademisi-australia-diduga-terlibat-gejolak-papua This allegation is quite untrue. In that same statement, the former general also vastly exaggerated my role in Timor-Leste in 1999. […]
In a move that is expected to wind Indonesia’s military into a frenzy and which will again start an Indonesian witch-hunt for Australian supporters, a West Papuan petition calling for a vote on independence has been presented to the United Nations’ Decolonisation Committee. The petition demands a free vote on West Papua’s independence as well […]
When Indonesia’s 180 million voters go to the polls tomorrow, they will be deciding whether Indonesia continues, more or less, with further developing its democratic experiment, or whether it turns away from a relatively open society that is necessary to allow democracy to flourish. While the choice might appear to be obvious to anyone committed […]
The announcement yesterday by Indonesian presidential candidate Joko Jokowi Widodo that his vice-presidential running mate will be former vice-president Jusuf Kalla has calmed concerns that Indonesia could be headed back towards an era of increased military influence. Until yesterday, it had been suggested that Jokowis running mate would be hard-line retired general Ryamizard Ryacudu. Jokowis […]
Rejected. Thats how they returned it. “Application rejected” was stamped on a visa application to speak at a seminar in Jakarta. With this, I will now reach an arbitrary but quite substantial decade on Indonesias “black” list. It has been widely assumed that Indonesias practice of black-listing people disappeared when president Suharto was pushed from […]
Indonesias democracy is being increasingly tested by the triple challenges of anti-reform actors, a high-level political malaise and popular disenchantment with the electoral process. Prabowo Subianto accepts the Great Indonesia Movement Party nomination for the 2014 presidential election (Photo: Wikipedia). One indicator of this has been an increasing tendency by the Indonesian military (TNI) to […]
For long-term Burma watchers, it has been easy to regard that country’s recent political changes as window dressing by an authoritarian regime hoping to attract investment without actually giving up power. There is no doubt, too, that the 2010 elections remained a very long way from being free and fair. But the bi-elections in April […]