Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Essential Reading Important New Strategic Literatu...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Essential Reading Important New Strategic Literatu...: Essential Reading Important New Strategic Literature Fiction, or Gaming? Rockefeller & The Demise of Ibu Pertiwi. By Kerry ...

Essential Reading Important New Strategic Literature

Essential Reading

Important New Strategic Literature

Fiction, or Gaming?

Rockefeller & The Demise of Ibu Pertiwi. By Kerry B. Collison. Melbourne, 2017: Sid Harta Publishers. Fact-based fiction. 336pp, paperback, illust. ISBN: 978-1-92103098-7. A$24.95 Australian RRP. $16.99 (US Amazon price). Also available as ebook.

 

Sometimes a view of the future can only be presented in the form of fiction, even though it represents a viable hypothesis of where events are leading. It is, in effect, strategic gaming. It was certainly the case with Stefan Possony’s great book, Waking Up The Giant (1974), which discussed how a US president takes office during the Cold War,

 

Australian-born Indonesia specialist Kerry Collison — a fluent Bahasa Indonesia speaker  — has been forced to specialize in such a genre, largely because legal constraints in Indonesia preclude discussing many political issues. Nonetheless, his writings invariably serve as prescient view of present and emerging trends. His latest book, Rockefeller & The Demise of Ibu Pertiwi,  is  particularly profound.

And Mr Collison surely pushes the boundary of the Indonesian legal sys- tem merely for its title, because it talks of “the demise of Ibu Pertiwi”: Ibu Pertiwi is the Indonesian motherland (literally “Mother Earth” from the pre-Muslim, Hindu era of Java).

His book immediately immerses the reader into the context of the post-World War II era and through to the transition from Pres. Sukarno into the era of Pres. Suharto, in the 1960s. Suddenly the attitudes and activities of the powers of the day — the declining Dutch and British, the increasingly concerned Australians, and the growing needs of the US — can be seen ensuring the inevitable global acceptance of the fatal “Act of Free Choice” (which was anything but) in July 1969.

This was the act which breathtakingly stole the Melanesian, former Dutch colony of West Papua (Irian Jaya), transforming it into a colony of the Javanese-dominated Indonesian Government. It remained a colony, disguised as the 26th province of Indonesia, later divided into two provinces (West Papua and Papua).

Collison’s deep knowledge and re- search will have readers reaching for history books and atlases. But he has been there as this history was being made, and his writing looks for all the world as though it is the combination of diaries of the players in all the camps: Indonesian, American, Aus- tralian, Dutch, British, and even those in the village huts in the highlands.

The fact that this is “current historical fiction” — a new genre? — does not make the book any less readable or gripping as Collison weaves highly credible scenarios in the halls of power in Jakarta, Canberra, Washing- ton, and London. Indeed, the professional Asia hand will certainly crave even more detail, and I challenge any serious reader not to rush off to consult further references to read of the affairs which have plagued the lives of Papuans for decades.

When Collison also weaves into the story the saga of the 1961 disappearance in the Arafura Sea, off southern West Papua, of explorer Michael Rockfeller, scion of the wealthy and political US Rockefeller clan, he does so in a way which adds real credibility to the overall tale. The fact that this makes the book more appealing to US readers is a bonus.

Kerry Collison makes it clear that the central player in the economy of Indonesian-occupied Papua is the mining operation which, in Rockefeller & The Demise of Ibu Pertiwi, is the fictitious P.T. Akumuga Mining corporation, run by the also-fictitious Summit Gold Mining Company of the US. The book details the maneuvering and corruption of Indonesian political, military, and corporate in terests to seize the mining operation, which has already been central to the Indonesian economy.

Collison’s book was already at press when the real-life parallel occurred:

On September 20, 2017, the Government selected State-owned aluminum firm PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) to acquire 51 per- cent of shares in gold and copper miner PT Freeport Indonesia from the US Freeport McMoRan Inc. parent company of Freeport Indonesia, which runs the mine which is central to the region’s economy.

The book is sub-titled “When Australia and Indonesia Again Go to War ...”, and not without reason. The issue of Indonesian-occupied Papua is extremely sensitive in Canberra-Jakarta relations, and Indonesian officials still burn over the perceived Australian betrayal in supporting the independence movement in the then-Indonesia-occupied former Portuguese colony of East Timor, now Timor Leste, in 1999-2000. Today, West Papuan in- dependence activists find safe-haven in Australia and, particularly, New Zealand.

Collison, in the book, gives significant background to real activities, events, people and organizations, including, of course, the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Free Papua Movement: OPM) and the very real, multinational body, the Melanesian Spear- head Group.

On September 26, 2017, a secretly- gathered petition signed by 1.8-mil- lion Papuans, depending a new independence referendum for Indonesian-occupied Papua, was presented to the United Nations; that represented more than 70 percent of the province’s population. United Liberation Movement for West Papua spokesman Benny Wenda told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that signing the petition was a “dangerous act” for West Papuans, with, he said, 57 people arrested for supporting the petition, and 54 tortured by Indonesian security forces during the campaign. The Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, said the petition was incredibly important and the people of West Papua had effectively already voted to demand their self-determination.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said that Australia had long recognized Indonesian sovereignty over the Papuan provinces.

Kerry Collison’s “fictional” book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the unfolding issue of West Papuan independence. — G.R. Copley, Publisher “Washington Defense & Strategic Affairs Policy”

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: US Mining Giant Takes on Indonesian Government ove...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: US Mining Giant Takes on Indonesian Government ove...: Freeport McMoRan refuses to go along with Jakarta’s takeover plan Freeport-McMoRan Inc, the US-based mining giant, has come out swing...

US Mining Giant Takes on Indonesian Government over WEST PAPUA Mine Divestiture

Freeport McMoRan refuses to go along with Jakarta’s takeover plan

Freeport-McMoRan Inc, the US-based mining giant, has come out swinging publicly against plans by the Indonesian government to take over a controlling interest in its Grasberg Mine, the world’s largest gold mine and the second largest copper mine, located on high on the side of a remote mountain in the province of Papua.

The Phoenix, Arizona company owns 90.64 percent of PT Freeport Indonesia, the principal operating subsidiary. The Indonesian government currently owns the remaining 9.36 percent.

In a Sept. 28 letter to the secretary general of Indonesia’s finance ministry, Rick Adkerson, Freeport’s chief executive, said the company, which has operated the mine since 1972, “has worked to be responsive to the government’s aspirations for 51 percent ownership but has been consistently clear that the divestment is conditional upon the transactions reflecting fair value of the business through 2041 and that Freeport retain management and governance control.  These are non-negotiable positions.”

Nonetheless, “There was a lot of celebrating of the framework agreement (ratifying the divestiture) by Indonesians,” said a western business source. “But they seem to think still they can get Freeport to sell at a steep discount. This was always going to get very messy. For decades vested interests have been trying to take Freeport. This move seems no different. It is a bellwether case for international investor sentiment.”

Indonesian private interests for decades have coveted the mine, which in 1988 was estimated to have reserves of gold, silver and copper worth US$40 billion. Freeport McMoRan was Indonesia’s first major international investor under then-leader Suharto. President Joko Widodo is said to have been the impetus for the divestiture, asserting that the country has a right to its own mineral resources. 

The mine is located 4,100 meters above sea level in one of West Papua’s most remote areas. Nonetheless, it has been the focus of a long series of violent ambushes starting in 2002. Another series of attacks took place in 2009 and continued for more than five days, culminating with a mine employee being shot and killed as he sat in the back of a car. In 2011, two Freeport employees were killed when the car was said to have been fired by unknown gunmen. That incident sparked protests by hundreds of Freeport employees. The environmental impact of the mine has also sparked protests.

In March, it was reported that international shareholders were pressuring Freeport to stand up to Indonesia over the proposed changes. As Asia Sentinel reported, Adkerson told a Florida mining conference that the government’s new demands are “in effect a form of expropriation of our assets and we are resisting it aggressively.” 

The government is requiring the company’s local subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia to convert its 1991 contract of work – its compact with the government to operate – into a special mining license in return for an export permit extension.  The new agreement would require the company to divest 51 percent of its shares to Indonesian interests. The contract of work isn’t due to expire until 2021 but Freeport wants guarantees that it will be extended on the company’s terms before it invests a promised US$18 billion in the mining operation.

In late August, Freeport agreed to the 51 percent divestment under a framework agreement. The government has demanded that the divestment take place by Dec. 31, 2018.

Freeport, however, is arguing that the initial divestment take place through an initial public offering, that full divestment take place in stages over a period of years and that any divestment must reflect the fair market value of the business through 2041, which the Phoenix, Arizona-based company maintains is its contractual right under the Contract of Work, as the overall agreement is known.

Freeport argues that its contract of work signed in 2011 gives it the right to operate for 30 years and that “the government will not unreasonably withhold or delay such approval.  The company, Adkerson said in the letter, “has obtained legal opinions from highly regarded Indonesian counsel supporting its rights to 2041.  Furthermore, Freeport has invested $14 billion to date and plans to invest an additional $7 billion in underground development projects through 2021, which benefit the operations through 2041.  The government has approved its long-term plans through 2041 through the AMDAL and other document submissions.

The company’s international shareholders,  Adkerson argued, “will not accept any transaction that does not reflect the fair value of the business based on our contractual rights through 2041. Although the government argues that divestment would be entirely taken over by an Indonesian participant,  Freeport said it would conduct the divestment through the sale of shares owned by the US-based parent, traded on the New York Stock Exchange as FCX.N.

The parent, Adkerson said, “has recently provided the Minister of Finance with proposed structures upon which it would be prepared to discuss divestment.  Freeport is prepared to discuss a path forward but cannot negotiate on the basis of the government’s September 28 proposal.  Until such time as a definitive agreement is reached through these negotiations, Freeport will continue to honor and abide by the COW and fully reserves its rights thereunder.”

In 2015, Freeport was the subject of a spectacular scandal when Setya Novanto, the speaker of Indonesia’s House of Representatives, was caught on tape using Jokowi’s name and that of Vice President Jusuf Kalla in a meeting with Maroef Sjamsoeddin, the president director of the Indonesian unit of Freeport, in requesting a bribe of 20 percent of the shares in the Grasberg mining operation. Setya was forced to resign from the speakership although he emerged largely unscathed from that scandal. He has since become enmeshed in another scandal over implementation of the country’s smart ID card.

 

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Outlawed West Papua independence petition presente...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Outlawed West Papua independence petition presente...: Outlawed West Papua independence petition presented to the United Nations By Timothy Fernandez Posted yesterday at...

Outlawed West Papua independence petition presented to the United Nations

By Timothy Fernandez

Posted yesterday at 8:12pmWed 27 Sep 2017, 8:12pm

Photo: Benny Wenda said dozens of people had been arrested for supporting the petition. (Reuters: Tom Miles)

Related Story: Bougainville independence referendum 'may not be possible': PNG PM

Map: Papua

A secret petition demanding a new independence referendum for West Papua has been presented to the United Nations.

The Indonesian Government banned the petition in the provinces of West Papua and Papua, threatening that those who signed it will be arrested and face jail.
But the document was smuggled between villages where it has been signed by 1.8 million West Papuans, more than 70 per cent of the province's population.
Advocates argue that West Papuans have been denied a legitimate self-determination process, since it was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969.
The petition demands a free vote on West Papua's independence as well as the appointment of a UN representative, to investigate reports of human rights violations by Indonesian security forces.
The Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, said the petition was incredibly important and the people of West Papua had effectively already voted to demand their self-determination.

"They have come in numbers to express their hope for a better future," Mr Sogavare said in his UN General Assembly speech.

United Liberation Movement for West Papua spokesman Benny Wenda said signing the petition was a "dangerous act" for West Papuans, with 57 people arrested for supporting the petition, and 54 tortured by Indonesian security forces during the campaign.
"The Global Petition for West Papua, run in tandem with the West Papuan People's Petition, was also targeted and the platform that initially hosted it, Avaaz, was blocked throughout all of Indonesia," he said.
Jason Macleod, of University of Sydney's Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, said the petition needed to be understood as a "fundamental rejection" of the Indonesian Government's claim of sovereignty over West Papua.
"In a very clear and direct manner, the petition represents Papuans' demand for decolonisation and self-determination, their desire to freely and fairly determine their own future," Dr Macleod said.

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: An Appeal to Indonesian President for Justice

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: An Appeal to Indonesian President for Justice: An activist stages a pantomime protest in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. The text on his t-shirt reads: 'Resolve ca...

An Appeal to Indonesian President for Justice

An activist stages a pantomime protest in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. The text on his t-shirt reads: 'Resolve cases of human rights violations.' (JG Photo/Yudha Ba

September is almost over, but the pain it has caused to the families of victims of human rights abuses does not end. It has been worsened by the fact that those responsible for the deaths of their loved ones still enjoy impunity.

"Today, 13 years ago, my husband was cruelly poisoned to death with arsenic. Hopefully, the president remembers it, because the murderers are still free," said Suciwati, the widow of rights activist Munir Said Thalib, who was murdered on Sept. 7, 2004.

Wanmayetti has been waiting even longer than Suciwati, as Sept. 12 marked 33 years of her seeking justice over the disappearance of her father, Bachtiar Johan. Along with 22 other people, Johan disappeared during a mass protest in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, in 1984, in which 24 were killed.

In 2006, 12 convicts in the Tanjung Priok case were freed by the Supreme Court.

"Jokowi [President Joko Widodo] has never said whether the Tanjung Priok case was over or not. The only thing that we need is the truth and justice from the state about the rights abuses," Wanmayetti said.

The case of Munir and the Tanjung Priok tragedy are only two of many grave human rights violations that took place in Septembers.

The pilot who poisoned my human rights mentor Munir was sent to jail. But a National Intelligence Agency (BIN) official accused of being the mastermind of the killing was acquitted in 2008.

Other September abuses include the shootings in Jakarta's Semanggi, in which 12 were killed, after a student protest on Sept. 24, 1999, and the state-sponsored anticommunist purge that started on on Sept. 30, 1965, in which 1 million people perished and hundreds of thousands were arbitrarily detained for decades.

The violent mob attack on the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) office in Jakarta on Sept. 17, has brought further misery to the families of the victims of the 1965-66 massacres, who were trying to host a seminar on those events.

What Does It Mean?

It means that the more the government with its blatant inaction delays justice to victims of human rights violations, the more vigilante groups feel emboldened to participate in blocking all attempts to reveal the truth about killings and abuses that mar our past. Sadly, while impunity persists, the right to gather peacefully to express opinion and share knowledge about the past is now also under serious threat.

The survivors of the 1965-66 massacres fear to talk about those events. None of those responsible for the killings has been brought to justice.

September has become "Dark September," which the victims of rights abuses observe every year as the month of human rights violations.

Mr. President, under both national and international laws, the Indonesian government is obliged to ensure that human rights violations are investigated thoroughly and independently, that perpetrators are brought to justice, and their victims are compensated.

Unfortunately, your vows and political commitment to resolve the cases of rights violations have so far seen no real action. In the past three years of your presidency, the human rights agenda from your electoral promises has not been a priority. Many of us believed it was one of your key policies. Soon you might join your predecessors in failing to fulfill the commitment to human rights.

While perpetrators enjoy impunity, thanks to their close ties with those in power and in the army, human rights violations become something people are no longer surprised of. Present and future perpetrators will not hesitate to commit abuses. This is what the term "cycle of impunity" means.

Inaction to end it may have contributed to the recent attacks on anticorruption activists across the country and persecution of indigenous communities that defend their traditional lands — 100 cases have been recorded lately by the Indigenous Peoples' Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN).

Farmers in Kendeng, Central Java or in Banyuwangi, East Java, have been criminalized and intimidated for trying to prevent their lands from being used by industries that harm the environment.

As of now, the police have failed to investigate the attacks against anticorruption activists, farmers and indigenous people.

It's been five months that the police are trying to solve the acid attack on senior antigraft investigator Novel Baswedan. Instead of stepping up their investigation, they are processing five reports that can see Novel himself being prosecuted.

One of the reports, charging Novel with defamation, was filed by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigations director Brig. Gen. Aris Budiman, after Novel told Time magazine that "a police general" was involved in the acid attack against him.

The police said Novel was "not cooperative" in helping them identify the assailants, apparently to justify the failure in finding them.

What bigger conclusion can we make from all these? The government's attempts to reform the police and the military, the two bodies that are frequently linked to human rights violations, have been unsuccessful.

It's been three years since you took office. And yet human rights violators are still untouchable under your administration. The cycle of impunity prevails.

You have less than two years to break this cycle, fulfill your human rights promises and deliver justice to Suciwati, Wanmayetti and thousands of others. It's high time to reprioritize your human rights agenda.

You have the will, the power and the resources. You must act now Mr. President, before September becomes forever Dark September. Please, don't delay justice any longer.

Usman Hamid is the director of Amnesty International Indonesia

 

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Melanesian leaders condemn UN for turning 'a deaf ...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Melanesian leaders condemn UN for turning 'a deaf ...:   Solomon Islands and Vanuatu leaders want investigation into alleged abuses and support for independence campaign Melanesian lead...

Melanesian leaders condemn UN for turning 'a deaf ear' to West Papua atrocities

 

Solomon Islands and Vanuatu leaders want investigation into alleged abuses and support for independence campaign

Melanesian leaders have accused the United Nations of having “turned a deaf ear” to human rights atrocities in the Indonesian province of Papua and urged the world to support the region’s campaign for independence.

At the UN General Assembly in New York, the prime ministers of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu called on the UN’s Human Rights Council to formally investigate long-standing allegations of human rights abuses in the provinces.

Vanuatu’s prime minister, Charlot Salwai, said the people of West Papua must be allowed the right to self-determination, to free themselves of the “yoke of colonialism”.

West Papua protest: Indonesian police kill one and wound others – reports

28-year-old man reportedly killed during the incident in Deiya regency, with up to seven wounded, including two children

Read more

“For half a century now the international community has been witnessing a gamut of torture, murder, exploitation, sexual violence and arbitrary detention inflicted on the nationals of West Papua, perpetrated by Indonesia, but the international community has turned a deaf ear to the appeals for help. We urge the Human Rights Council to investigate these cases.

“We also call on our counterparts throughout the world to support the legal right of West Papua to self-determination and to jointly with Indonesia put an end to all kinds of violence and find common ground with the nationals to facilitate putting together a process which will enable them to freely express their choice.”

The Solomons leader, Manasseh Sogavare, said the UN’s sustainable development goal motto of “no one left behind” would be “synonymous to empty promises unless we in the United Nations take active steps to address the plight of the people of West Papua”.

“Failing this, we as a family of nations will become complicit in perpetuating the sufferings and becoming blind to the injustices, missing yet another golden opportunity to remain true to the saying of ‘leaving no one behind’.”

Indonesian-controlled Papua and West Papua form the western half of the island of New Guinea. Political control of the region has been contested for more than half a century and Indonesia has consistently been accused of gross human rights violations and violent suppression of the region’s independence movement.

The people indigenous to the province are Melanesian, ethnically distinct from the rest of Indonesia and more closely linked to the people of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Formerly the Netherlands New Guinea, Papua was retained by the Dutch after Indonesian independence in 1945 but the province was annexed by Jakarta in 1963 and Indonesia control was formalised by a 1969 referendum widely condemned as having been fixed bythe Suharto government.

Known as Irian Jaya until 2000, the province has also been split into two provinces, Papua and West Papua, since 2003.

Many Papuans consider the Indonesian takeover to have been an illegal annexation and the OPM (Free Papua Movement) has led a low-level insurgency for decades.

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia Crosses the Nine-Dash Line -Jakarta tell...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia Crosses the Nine-Dash Line -Jakarta tell...:                Jakarta tells Beijing the South China Sea isn’t a Chinese lake On July 14, Indonesia took a major step forward in conf...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia Crosses the Nine-Dash Line -Jakarta tell...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia Crosses the Nine-Dash Line -Jakarta tell...:                Jakarta tells Beijing the South China Sea isn’t a Chinese lake On July 14, Indonesia took a major step forward in conf...

Indonesia Crosses the Nine-Dash Line -Jakarta tells Beijing the South China Sea isn’t a Chinese lake

               Jakarta tells Beijing the South China Sea isn’t a Chinese lake

On July 14, Indonesia took a major step forward in confronting China’s South China Sea claims with an announcement that it was renaming a part of the sea in its territory the “North Natuna Sea,” becoming in a single step the most important Southeast Asian nation to stand up to Beijing.

That may have come to many as surprise – certainly to the Chinese, who called on Indonesia to stop using the term on official maps and documents with a diplomatic note, written in Mandarin, from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Indonesian embassy in Beijing.

Nonetheless, the Indonesians are sticking to their guns. The new name encompasses an area north of the Natuna islands that partly falls within China’s “nine dash line,” by which Beijing claims the sea stretching 1500 miles from its mainland coast almost to the shores of Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

The naming was a reminder of how seriously Indonesia treats its position as the seat of ancient trading empires and the location of some of the world’s strategically most important straits – Melaka, Sunda, Lombok and Makassar. Since he was elected in 2014 President Joko Widodo has made maritime issues central to Indonesia’s foreign policy, building up its navy, arresting and dynamiting dozens of foreign ships caught fishing illegally, and taking a quiet but firm stand on sea rights.

In December of 1957, Indonesia declared that it was an archipelagic state, at the time a revolutionary move and a direct assault on the assumption by the major western powers that territorial seas extended only three nautical miles from actual coastlines, and that the seas otherwise were open to all.

The 1957 Indonesian claim helped set in motion 25s years of negotiations that led eventually to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed in 1982 and which finally came into force in 1994, along with an implementation agreement which opened the way to ratification by western powers which had had some reservations. Most developing countries, including China, had already signed up. (The US has accepted its provisions in practice but has still not ratified it). The Convention formerly enshrined the archipelagic principle, which by then had become widely accepted in practice.

In total there were 37 years of negotiations on the whole range of complicated issues relating to territorial seas, internal waters, rights of innocent passage, particularly through important straits, rights to fish and seabed resources, continental shelf issues, air transit rights etc. Indonesia continuously played a leading role.

That was natural given that it is, by far, the world’s largest archipelagic state and owns all or part of several of international commerce’s most important straits – Melaka, Singapore, Sunda, Karimata, Lombok and Makassar. But success required the continuous and detailed engagement of the nation’s foremost diplomats, notably Mochtar Kusumaatmadja and Hasjim Djalal who remained on the case through all the political turmoil of 1960s’ Indonesia and through to the 1970 and 80s when Mochtar was foreign minister.

The broad story has been told before, including by Hasjim Djalal’s son, Dino Patti Djalal, formerly Indonesia’s ambassador in Washington, but John G Butcher and R E Elson, two Australian academics, have written the most detailed account of the negotiations and Indonesia’s role in them in their book “Sovereignty and the Sea: How Indonesia Became an Archipelagic State,” published by NUS Press in Singapore. It is an impressive work of scholarship which could have been even better had the authors been given access to Indonesia’s own National Archives or those of its Foreign Ministry. Thus they had to rely on British, US, Dutch and Australian  records dealing with various aspects of the negotiations, and those of Fiji, another archipelagic state which played an active part,.

The book also used  secondary works and interviews with key participants, including Hasjim, Mochtar and Tommy Koh, Singapore’s lawyer/diplomat who as President of the 1980-82 UN Conference played a key role in bringing the negotiations to their conclusion with the 1982 Convention.

In addition to dealing with big power interests, demanding sea and air access rights and strict limits on the resources claims of littoral states, the Indonesians had a hard time trying to keep neighbors on their side. The Philippines was helpful enough as a large archipelago in its own right and possessor of the internal Sulu Sea. But Malaysia was a major headache given that its interests in communication between its mainland and Borneo territories as well as their offshore and fishing resources ran up against Indonesia’s baseline claims.

Eventually formulae were devised which Malaysia could accept and were applicable in similar situations elsewhere. Japan, though an archipelago itself, was also a problem due to its huge fishery interests. But even before finally coming into force, the 1982 UNCLOS provided a basis for bilateral agreements on boundary, fishing and seabed issues. And the region has, unlike China, lived up to promises to accept international judgments – such as on boundary disputes between Singapore and Malaysian and Indonesia and Malaysia.

Butcher and Elson authors show how delicate sea questions could be. During Indonesia’s konfrontasi or undeclared war with Malaysia in 1964, Britain wanted to send a warship to Australia using the Sunda Strait over which Indonesia claimed ownership but which the British insisted was an international waterway. After some quiet diplomacy, the British opted to go the longer way via the equally Indonesian but less sensitive Lombok strait in return for an assurance that Sunda would remain open. London ordered its navy always to give advance notice of passage to Indonesia. These were the kind of steps which over time were to make a realty of most – but not all – of Indonesia’s 1957 claims. Likewise was a temporary informal deal with in 1968 provided Japanese fisheries organisations access to the Banda Sea and its tuna stocks.

Given maritime Asia’s key role in UNCLOS, the book by the two Australian authors is an important if silent reminder of the demeaning nature of President Duterte’s undermining of his own country’s victory at the Permanent Court of Arbitration on UNCLOS issues in return for promises of cash from China. It is also an insult to those from the region who made the Convention and formal acceptance of the archipelagic principle possible, particularly Indonesians but including Philippine diplomats and Singapore’s Koh. The 1982 Convention is a document of critical importance to the maritime states of the region. They forget it at their peril.

By Philip Bowring Headline, Indonesia, Politics

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: BALI’S MOUNT AGUNG NEARING ERUPTION

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: BALI’S MOUNT AGUNG NEARING ERUPTION: BALI’S MOUNT AGUNG NEARING ERUPTION   GOVERNMENT HAS RAISED THE CAUTION TO LEVEL 3 OUT OF 4

BALI’S MOUNT AGUNG NEARING ERUPTION

BALI’S MOUNT AGUNG NEARING ERUPTION

 

GOVERNMENT HAS RAISED THE CAUTION TO LEVEL 3 OUT OF 4

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Volcanic activity of Mount Agung in Bali increasin...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Volcanic activity of Mount Agung in Bali increasin...:   Bali - Volcanic tremor activity of Mount Agung in the district of Karangasem, Bali, has been on the increase since early this month...

Volcanic activity of Mount Agung in Bali increasing

 

Bali - Volcanic tremor activity of Mount Agung in the district of Karangasem, Bali, has been on the increase since early this month.

"Actually volcanic tremors have already happened since in the middle of August, 2017 but they then vanished before emerging again and since early in September it has continued to increase," head of volcanic mitigation of the Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center of the Geological Agency of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Gede Suantika, said here on Sunday.

He explained on Friday (Sept 15) tremor activities of the mountain reached 27 times and increased to 73 on Saturday.

From 00.00 to 12.00 hours on Sunday the number of volcanic tremors was recorded reaching 50 times.

The mountain is still under alert status and people are appealed to not conduct activities within a radius of three kilometers, he said.

He said his office would keep monitoring the a tivity and studying data available to update information to the public.

He sad he had also informed Karangasem district head I Gusti Ayu Mas Sumantri and other officials concerned to inform the public to remain calm and alert with regard to the mountain's activity.

Head of the regional disaster mitigation office, Dewa Indra, has also called on the people not to be worried and follow givernment instruction. "They must follow information from official sources so that they will not be misled," he said.

He said if the mountain's activity continued to rise the public will be informed and so they would have time to pack up and evacuate. 

 

Record since 1800 said that Mount Agung had have mega eruptions four times, the latest that killed more than 8,000 was only recently in 1963.  

 

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: New Release Title based on the Fight for West Papu...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: New Release Title based on the Fight for West Papu...: New Release Title based on the Fight for West Papuan Independence (now available on Kindle and POD Amazon)   “Rockefeller and the ...

New Release Title based on the Fight for West Papuan Independence (now available on Kindle and POD Amazon)

New Release Title based on the Fight for West Papuan Independence (now available on Kindle and POD Amazon)

 

“Rockefeller and the Demise of Ibu Pertiwi”

Author: Kerry B. Collison

 

ISBN-10:1-921030-98-4

ISBN-13:978-1-921030-98-7

RRP $24.95

Sid Harta Publishers Melbourne Australia

 

In 1961 and one month following the disappearance of Michael C. Rockefeller off the southern coast of what was then known as Dutch Western New Guinea, Indonesia invaded, annexed and commenced the systematic slaughter of indigenous Papuans, to pave the way for a massive wave of transmigrated Javanese.

With the meteoric rise of the new powerhouses China and India, Indonesian-occupied West Papua’s wealth of oil, gas and minerals precipitates an international power-play for control over the vast, untapped natural resources.

Decades have passed since the twenty-three-year-old Rockefeller disappeared – long presumed dead, when sightings of the heir are widely reported.

Demands for West Papuan independence gains momentum and Australia is again drawn into military conflict with the Indonesian Motherland, “Ibu Pertiwi”.

In Europe, there is growing support for the international community to revisit the flawed 1969 West New Guinea plebiscite. Some member nations of the European Community, including The Netherlands, have suggested that the United Nations might consider reviewing the implementation of the referendum with the purpose of determining whether the process was, in fact, democratic.

 

And, more recently, driven by anti-Australian sentiment the groundswell has become evident amongst Western Pacific island states which, in concert with their African counterparts such as Zimbabwe, have become increasingly vociferous in their calls for such a U.N. resolution. And, surprisingly, the lead has now been taken up by Ireland.

 

However, the situation is more than problematic for Australians.

 

Should the United Nations support a call for a new plebiscite to be held in West Papua, such action would undoubtedly become the genesis of any future confrontation between Australia and Indonesia – fertile ground, indeed, for the growing number of militant religious groups (both Christian and Moslem) that fester throughout the great archipelago that is Indonesia, referred to lovingly as “Ibu Pertiwi”.

 

What role will the Melanesian Spearhead Group play in this?

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Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia Can’t Get its Tourism Act Together

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Indonesia Can’t Get its Tourism Act Together:                          They call it ‘Wonderful Indonesia!’ Or Maybe Not Millions of television viewers in multiple countries often ...

Indonesia Can’t Get its Tourism Act Together

                        They call it ‘Wonderful Indonesia!’ Or Maybe Not

Millions of television viewers in multiple countries often see advertisements encouraging them to come to “Wonderful Indonesia.” The nation does indeed have an amazing number of actual or potential tourist attractions – historic sites, natural wonders, beautiful beaches, interesting buildings, wildlife, arts and local customs. It also now has okay hotels, a web of air links and some comfortable if slow trains, at least in Java.

Yet what seems singularly lacking to this recent visitor is much sense of pride in its history which could be communicated to tourists who want to do more than lie on beaches, climb volcanoes or simply enjoy the scenery.

The 1,200-year-old temples of Borobudur (Buddhist) and Prambanan (Hindu) close to Yogyakarta are World Heritage sites that clearly qualify as wonderful. Yet visiting them again for the first time in more than a decade this tourist was struck by the total lack on information available to explain the stories and the symbolism of the successive tiers of stone carvings which comprise this remarkable building. No guidebooks even in Bahasa, let alone English, Chinese, Japanese, etc.

Visitors interested in more than taking photos of the temple and themselves need to either have acquired a guide book before they arrive – which is difficult – or pay for the services of a local guide who can explain some of the basics and point out a few of the most noteworthy features. Ones speaking various languages are available but this is not cheap, the guides’ knowledge appears limited and does not provide visitors with a record of the building which they can keep as mementoes and study at their leisure. Nor is there much sense that this is a religious monument which requires as much respect as a mosque or church. Much the same situation prevails at Prambanan.

At Borobudur, exhibits in the nearby museum are poorly displayed. Lack of information also means few visit the nearby museum housing the Samudraraksa, the replica of a ship illustrated by Borobudur reliefs which in 2003 was sailed from Jakarta to the Seychelles, Madagascar, Cape Town and Accra (Ghana). Built with traditional tools and materials, the ship provides the most tangible reminder of the sailing feats of the Indonesians who settled Madagascar and traded to Africa and Arabia in the first millennium, and later.

A book about the expedition exists published by the Lontar Foundation– this writer has one from a previous visit – but is no longer available at the museum. Yet at a time when President Joko Widodo is focusing attention on the contemporary importance of maritime issues, Indonesia should be making as much fuss about its achievements as China does with Zheng He’s voyages nearly a thousand years later.

Perhaps modern Indonesia has become so concerned with being Islamic that it forgets that its most celebrated achievements predate the arrival of Islam. Not that there is much sense of pride in Java’s first mosques. Built in the north Java towns, Demak, Kudus and Jepara, then trading cities, the mixture of local Hindu, Chinese and Persian influences in their (very different) designs provide a fascinating insight into how Islam arrived with trade. Yet do not expect to find much information on site, let alone in multiple languages.

That is again the case for tourists who, starting from Yogya or Semarang, take the slow but stunningly beautiful winding road through precariously terraced hillsides to the mist-enshrouded 7^th century Hindu temples, bubbling volcanic rocks and sulphurous lakes 2,000 meters up on Central Java’s Dieng Plateau. This “abode of the gods,” once home to dozens of temples of which a few are left, was the spiritual center of the Sanjaya dynasty. Understandably, foreigners have to pay more than locals to visit. But unless a visitor arrives with a guidebook, there is nothing to explain the history and significance of the site.

Jakarta with its traffic, pollution and shortage of historic buildings cannot be high up on any tourist’s itinerary. Yet, given its collections at the National Museum, situated on the west side of Merdeka square opposite the National Monument, should be a place for showing Indonesia’s history and culture. But the exhibits are bizarrely organized and poorly presented. Some important artefacts lack any description or one only in Bahasa. Part of the museum housing large statuary is currently closed for renovation so maybe eventually the whole museum will emerge rejuvenated. But there is a long way to go – and also a need for the kind of guidebook, in several languages, which is the norm at most significant museums. 

All told, this visitor’s experience of a few days sightseeing was that if the responsible authorities in Indonesia had a greater sense of national pride, the tourist would come away with a much better impression. The apparent official disinterest in showing off the history and achievements of its peoples contrasts with the efforts of a private group, the Lontar Foundation, to preserve legacies such as illuminated Javanese manuscripts, and the Bugis chronicle, La Galigo, and promote modern Indonesian culture and writing, including having success in bringing its authors to international attention.

By Philip Bowring Headline, Indonesia, Society