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: violence
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 […]
For a country which gave the world the word ‘serendipity’, from an early Arab trader name for the island, Sri Lanka has been subject to extremist violence almost from the outset. Easter Sunday’s coordinated bomb blasts in the capital Colombo, which killed almost 300 and injured hundreds more, were just the latest event in a […]
West Papua is in turmoil with the killing of 31 construction workers and a soldier, widespread protests and the arrest of 537 West Papuan activists across Indonesia. These events follow what West Papuan sources say have been the killing of numerous villagers in recent weeks. Taken together, these events mark a significant escalation of the […]
A plan to end the South Sudan conflict being brokered by neighbouring governments is not likely to come to fruition. Despite talks around a ceasefire proposal since before the first of the year, there has been no sign of movement towards ending a spiral of violence that has torn apart the worlds newest state. The […]
The massive but, happily, largely benign earthquake off the coast of Sumatra on Wednesday left millions of people in Aceh reliving the nightmare the engulfed them on Boxing Day 2004, when a similarly large but different type of earthquake sent a wall of water across the lowlands, killing around 180,000 people. That the earthquake and […]
Indonesias province of Aceh goes to the polls on Monday, in what has been a bitterly contested election for the position of governor. In Indonesias other provinces the position of governor is important but, in the autonomous province of Aceh, following a three decade long separatist war, it is critical. As a result of the […]
There is currently no state government funding mechanism to support and sustain community crime prevention in Victoria. Given the available evidence shows that preventing youth volence and crime is a good investment, I call on the Victorian state government to set up funding mechanisms to support community crime prevention. Recent reports have raised concern […]