En Passant

Mitra Salima Suryono in Lhoksukon, Indonesia writes for UNHCR about the basic humanity that ordinary Indonesians have shown to the Rohingya. To read the whole article celebrating humanity click here. After long ordeal at sea, Rohingya find humanity in Indonesia.

The Indonesian ruling class and their politicians are no more barbaric than Australia’s ruling class and politicians are or can be. Capitalism itself is barbaric. I doubt anything now will save the Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran from the firing squad in Indonesia. The lesson I draw from their impending execution and from the violence that is a daily part of the capitalist system is that we need to overthrow capitalism to abolish the death penalty in all its forms.

Ben Hillier has written an excellent and informative article on West Papua in the latest Red Flag. He says for example: The number of dead has mounted during Indonesia’s 50-year occupation. Sydney University researchers John Wing and Peter King estimate that at least 100,000 have been killed. Exiled independence leader Benny Wenda claims that the number is half a million. They are victims of what has been called slow-burn genocide.

The aim of this paper is to give readers an introduction to the Asian Development Model and use that to examine mining reforms in Indonesia. The paper argues that there is an Asian Development Model and that the Indonesian mining reforms, in particular the requirement over time for 51 percent Indonesian ownership and the ban on the export of unprocessed resources, represent an attempt by the Indonesian state to speed up industrialisation in the country and spread more of the benefits from mining to ordinary citizens in the recently democratised and politically decentralised country. In attempting to show strength however, the Indonesian state is exposing some weakness. The impact on jobs, revenue and production has been adverse although Foreign Direct Investment has increased. This latter may be because it is foreign multinational mining companies who are better placed than local mining enterprises to build smelters. The success of industrialising mining might be at the expense of local capital. In other words state intervention does not always produce all of the desired outcomes. It is not a panacea.

It is a pity that Barnaby Joyce, a man of tact, diplomacy, nuance and subtlety, isn’t going to Indonesia to fix things up. I know I am disappointed that Barnaby is missing out on this great opportunity, and I am sure the Indonesians feel the same way. [Sarcasm alert.]

Whistleblowing hero, Edward Snowden, has revealed that Australia’s equivalent of the Stasi has been tracking the calls of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian President and a number of other powerful Indonesian politicians, including Ministers and potential candidates in next year’s presidential election. The Indonesians now know the reality of Australian imperialism, or rather Snowden has exposed it to the Indonesian masses and to Australians. Tony Abbott’s Jakarta strategy is in tatters. Good.

When Tony Abbott says Australia is open for business what he means is that Australian profits built on the bones of dead West Papuans are OK by him.

The systematic political murder of around 1 million people in Indonesia began on 1 October 1965 and lasted around three years writes Max Lane in Red Flag. The violence was accompanied by mass arrests, probably hundreds of thousands going in and out of ad hoc prisons between 1965 and 1968.

There are 4000 refugees in Indonesia. Instead of letting them rot there for many years or risk a dangerous sea journey, we could bring them here safely for processing while they are in the community.

A QANTAS jet holds say 500 people. The Gillard labor Government could charter 8 of them to bring the refugees in Indonesia to Australia. That would save them from the risk of drowning at sea in seeking asylum here.