FOREIGN dignitaries in black limos are a common sight in Washington, DC. Rarely though do they hail from Laos, a tiny, landlocked country that was caught up in America’s ill-fated Indochina War. Laos’s foreign minister, Thongloun Sisoulith, who met his counterpart, Hillary Clinton, on July 13th, is the most senior Lao official to visit since 1975, when Communist forces seized power. The two countries restored full diplomatic ties in 1992, but the war still casts a shadow. Unexploded ordnance, dropped by the Americans, remains scattered over the Lao countryside.
Another niggling concern is the fate of 4,689 ethnic Hmong who were forcibly sent back to Laos by Thailand in December. During the war the CIA recruited the Hmong as anti-Communist fighters. Many fled the country after 1975, ending up as refugees in America, Thailand and elsewhere. In 2004-05 America accepted 14,000 Hmong who had been living at a Thai temple. The latest group, which had been stuck in Thai army camps, was less fortunate. Thai officials, calling them economic migrants, blocked most from applying for sanctuary via the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR. And although 158 of them did get somehow get UN refugee status, pending resettlement by America and others, they were deported anyway.
Foreign governments pressed Laos for access to the returned refugees, who were packed off to resettlement villages. In March visitors were flown by helicopter to one village for a carefully staged visit. Handpicked Hmong told diplomats that they preferred to stay in Laos and had been “misled” into seeking refugee status. But when others went off script, pleading for help in getting to the West, the visitors were bundled away. Some of these Hmong have since fled from the village, presumably for the border. In response, a curfew has been imposed, a human-rights monitor reports from Bangkok, the Thai capital.
Laos denies that the Hmong, one of dozens of minority groups, face any ill treatment. But they have reason to be worried. Hmong traditionally farm upland areas where the CIA set up clandestine operating bases during the war and, incredibly, 35 years later, tiny pockets of Hmong fighters are still battling the Lao army. It is unclear how many, if any, of the latest deportees are related to these ragtag rebels. But with such uncertainty, international law forbids the forced return of people to a country where they fear persecution.
Sadly, it is not the first time that Thailand has flouted such rules. It has turned away Myanmar’s minorities, including Muslim Rohingya boat people who in 2009 were pushed back to sea, where hundreds probably drowned. Army officers claimed that the Rohingya were a security threat and had links to a Muslim-led insurgency in the south. They gave no evidence and, despite a promise by the Thai prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, there has been no inquiry.
Thailand’s expulsion of the Hmong drew sharp criticism from American, UN and European Union officials. But it has done wonders for relations between Thailand and Laos. The Obama administration tries to claim that America’s influence in the region is not waning. Mrs Clinton is expected at a summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations next week in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital. But shoddy treatment of minorities by Thailand, long an American ally, bodes ill for others hoping for help from the superpower. Nor is it an encouraging sign for Thailand itself. “There was a time when they wouldn’t do this, when the rule of law meant something,” sighs a Western diplomat in Bangkok. The Economist
The Australian government is still looking for a suitable location to build a regional processing center for asylum seekers, and Indonesia would do well to raise its hand. Although Australia prefers the center not be in a transit country such as Indonesia, Jakarta should consider the benefits to be gained from convincing Canberra that Indonesia would be a better location than, for instance, East Timor. In fact, Australia has already indicated the value of working with Indonesia, investing $28 million just to enhance ties with Indonesia over the issue.
Should Indonesia be willing to take this step today, Australia would most certainly agree for reasons of political stability, proximity and human resource capacity.
Indonesia is in a unique and powerful position, particularly given the current political climate in Australia, to propose its own terms to the benefit of its citizens.
The government of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard would likely accept them out of the need to temporarily resolve this issue and stand the Labor Party in good stead for the Aug. 21 elections.
The perceived need in Australia for such a center is good news for Indonesia because it opens opportunities for economic development, resolution of social issues and an upgrade of Indonesia’s capacity to handle human trafficking.
A processing center would contribute to Indonesian economic development, particularly in the area where it was established. The center would provide business opportunities and jobs during its construction, maintenance and operation.
Should Indonesia make a successful bid, it could expect to receive something akin to Australia’s current offshore detention budget, which in the next four years is estimated to be as much as $790 million, with $358 million allocated for 2010-11 alone.
Although the budget for offshore management is expected to be just $156 million in 2011-12 due to a decline in the number of asylum-seeker arrivals, this is still good for Indonesia.
The construction of the center could see Indonesian companies receiving at least $132 million if it is as big as the Christmas Island detention center but budgeted to cost only one-third as much.
Indonesian airlines could pocket almost $5 million a year, the amount Australia spent chartering flights to move asylum seekers offshore in 2005 and 2006 alone.
Indonesia’s food industry would benefit as the center could generate revenue of about $2.7 million a year if the facility houses 1,500 asylum seekers and the food budget is $5 a day per asylum seeker.
In addition to the economic benefits to the business sector, the center also would give Indonesian NGOs the opportunity and aid to initiate social development projects at the center in areas such as education and human rights.
For these economic opportunities to have a more positive impact for Indonesians, it would be important that the center be established in a poor area such as East Nusa Tenggara and employ locals in conjunction with Australian immigration officers.
Although Australia may argue differently based on considerations of cost, security or location, Indonesia ultimately holds the final say.
The center would help Jakarta solve a variety of social issues caused by those asylum seekers temporarily staying in Indonesia, sometimes for years, while waiting for a boat to Australia.
It also would significantly boost Indonesia’s capacity to handle human trafficking and border security. Australia would provide aid to buy new patrol boats, surveillance planes and other operational equipment.
Not only that, Australia also would have to train Indonesian police and immigration officers in processing asylum seekers and investigating people smuggling.
For this to work, several requirements should be met. Indonesia would require a commitment from Australia that Canberra would take responsibility for whatever problems arose.
Indonesia also would need to make sure that projects and jobs related to the construction, maintenance and operation of the center were contracted to Indonesian companies and people.
For its part, Australia would need to work closely with Indonesian human rights and anticorruption NGOs to ensure Indonesia complied with Australian human rights and anticorruption regulations.
By Muh Taufiqurrohman who holds a master’s degree in international relations from Parahyangan Catholic University (UNPAR) in Bandung. Rebecca Lunnon is a graduate student at Monash University in Melbourne.
FRENCH lawmakers have voted overwhelmingly to ban the wearing of full-face veils in public, a similar bill is awaiting Senate approval in Belgium, and several European countries are pushing for a similar ban. But not Britain, according to its immigration minister, Damian Green, as it would be "a rather un-British thing" to tell people what they can or can't wear. Nevertheless, it's a view that is not shared by two-thirds of the Britons who said in a poll on Friday they would back such a ban, and it has not stopped a fellow Tory member of parliament, Philip Hollobone, from tabling a bill to make it unlawful for people to cover their faces as it was "against the British way of life".
French President Nicolas Sarkozy also saw the veil as an "affront" to his country's "republican values" and the proposed ban as a reaffirmation of France's secularism. When there is an emphasis on the secular nature of the state, as in France, it would seem that visible religious symbols would be at odds with such principles. Even a less secular state such as Syria has seen it fit to outlaw the veil in its universities as it is deemed to be "inconsistent with the values and ethics of academic traditions". Other Muslim countries have also restricted face coverings as they do not regard them to be obligatory. On the other hand, while more conservative Muslim societies require women to cover their heads and bodies, veils covering the face are rare.
Of course, just as there's no such thing as absolute freedom, there are limits to what people can wear or cover. Faces have to be shown for identities to be established, and there are times when it's important to be able to see someone's face. But as skiers clad in balaclavas, motorcyclists wearing crash helmets and carnival-goers behind fancy-dress masks have been exempted from the law approved by the French National Assembly, one suspects there is more to the ban on veils than meets the eye. In the circumstances, it is hard to see how these can be allowed but the veil is forbidden, especially when only 1,900 women in France wear it. There's certainly no cause to call veils a "walking coffin" when what seems to be dying are the hallowed European traditions of liberty, equality and fraternity. Indeed, no less than the Conseil Consitutionnel, France's highest court, has viewed the proposed ban as a violation of the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and religion. Editorial, New Straits Times Kuala Lumpur
Om Swastiastu ...
Read the full report at: http://www.balidiscovery.com/update/update723.asp
Top news stories this week include three narcotics-related stories. A Philippine woman was arrested last week carrying heroin at Bali's airport, while the Bali courts handed down life sentences to two Malaysian guilty of carrying methamphetamine into Bali last January. Scott Rush, a member of the 'Bali Nine,' filed a formal appeal last week, seeking a reduction of his death penalty.
There's growing concern that thuggery and criminality is getting out of hand in Kuta with the brutal slaying of a nightspot employee in front of horrified guests. Climate change and a "normal disease cycle" are cited as the reasons behind the record number of dengue fever cases recorded in South Bali. And, a Bali-bound Merpati flight from Lombok fails to take off as passengers flee a smoke-filled cabin on the runway.
Zoning, or the lack thereof, remains sadly topical in Bali. There's a call from Jakarta for Bali's regents to strike a compromise over the RTRW (provincial zoning law) with the governor to stem the rampant development now affecting the island. We also have a pictorial editorial on the blight of cliff-side development on Bali's Ungasan peninsula. Read and weep.
In airline news, Strategic Airlines obtains permission to fly between Port Hedland and Bali beginning in August, while AirAsia (Indonesia) declares its intent to start flying between Bali and Darwin in October.
The handicraft sector in Bali received two potential boosts this week with the announcement of plans to modernize the Sukawati traditional market in 2010 and the launch of a program to persuade Bali land owners to plant trees to provide badly needed raw materials for the island's wood carvers.
Art lovers have a number of coming exhibitions to look forward to. There's a traveling exhibition of 1930 photographs by Horace Bristol coming to Jakarta and Bali. Angelo Bellebono shows his multi-media works at Biasa Artspace in Kuta July 30-September 15, 2010. And, students from two leading Indonesian art institutes will exhibit their skills at Hanna Art Space in Ubud July 24-August 8, 2010.
For the bean counters out there – read the latest installment of "Bali by the Numbers" examining May 2010 tourist arrivals to Bali.
Alll this . . .and more . . .in Edition 723 Bali Update.
Om Çanti Çanti Çanti Om ...
J.M. Daniels - Bali Update
Bali Discovery Tours
Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew once hailed air- conditioning’s role as the breakthrough technology that helped transform Southeast Asia’s post-colonial commodity-dominated economies into some of the world’s fastest-growing financial and industrial markets. Nuclear power can play a significant role in providing electricity for running those air-conditioners, making the adoption of safe new-generation nuclear power plants an area that should be prioritized under US-Asean cooperation. It is an effort that supports our mutual economic and national security interests.
There is no operational nuclear power plant in the Asean region today. However, all of the 10 member nations — except Brunei and Laos — have active plans for adding nuclear power into the electricity-generating mix. In terms of scale, Vietnam has the most aggressive nuclear power ambitions. It recently announced plans to build eight plants by 2030, producing 15,000 to 16,000 megawatts of electricity. Indonesia plans to have four nuclear plants producing 6,000 MW by 2025. Thailand has plans to develop two nuclear plants to generate 2,000 MW by 2022. Singapore, which generates the majority of its power from increasingly scarce gas, has a feasibility plan for nuclear power under way. Other countries are developing similar plans.
Nuclear power is an important option for Asean, whose electricity demand is estimated by the International Energy Association to increase 76 percent between 2007 and 2030 at an average annual rate of 3.3 percent growth, compared to an estimated 2.5 percent annual growth in demand in the rest of the world over the same period. Meeting Asean countries’ electricity demand will require investing more than $1.1 trillion in the next 25 years.
Contemplation of nuclear energy for Asean countries is not new, but today, with growing demand for imported fossil fuels and concerns about the environment, it is much more serious. Asean nations are bound by the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, which states that there will be no prejudice toward the peaceful use of nuclear energy. It also states that prior to embarking on nuclear programs, political buy-in is needed from the International Atomic Energy Agency and from other Asean nations.
Nuclear nonproliferation concerns and safeguards will be very important as Asean proceeds in developing its nuclear power capabilities. Only one Asean country, Burma, is alleged to be developing any plans for nuclear weapons. Those allegations, denied by Burma’s military leaders, are being investigated by the IAEA.
Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the IAEA established safeguard standards suitable for application to both simple nuclear activities and to complex nuclear fuel cycles; ie, a system applicable to reactors and to conversion, fabrication, enrichment and reprocessing plants that produce and process reactor fuel. The IAEA has clear accountancy and monitoring rules for tracking declared nuclear material.
To be effective, this system requires a high level of confidence, trust and transparency. These are guidelines Asean governments would have every interest in following, but strong engagement from the international community would be helpful. In fact, there is already a strong alliance between the United States and Japan in developing new nuclear power plant designs.
Asean nations must also negotiate bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreements with the nuclear supplier countries (including the United States, Japan, France, Russia, Canada and Australia, among others, before they can receive nuclear reactors, fuel, equipment, services and technology. Some Asean countries already have such agreements in place. As part of this process, Asean countries will need to demonstrate their commitment to maintaining international standards of nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation.
Given the Obama administration’s interest in building international partnerships and consensus on nuclear nonproliferation and climate change, and the president’s commitment to engage Asean at new and substantive levels, the nuclear energy field seems a logical area for immediate and expanded cooperation. This engagement is also consistent with the Obama administration’s goal of doubling US exports in the next five years. American companies are among the world’s leaders in various aspects of nuclear power but face stiff competition from France, Russia and Japan.
Obama could initiate this process in the broader context of US-Asean energy cooperation, which could include a wide range of issues from renewable energy to energy conservation. One format for such cooperation could be a US-Asean Energy Bilateral Meeting that would be a step toward the US energy secretary attending the annual Asean Energy Ministers Meeting.
As the mercury rises inside the beltway, US policy makers would be wise to take the opportunity to stay indoors, hydrate aggressively and open a new chapter of US-Asean cooperation on nuclear power. The initiative would serve both Asean’s and America’s economic and national security requirements.
By Ernest Bower senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Muslim advocates of the dinar believe it will stop the excesses of capitalism, but it is just another avenue for exploitation Imagine a world trading solely in gold and silver coins. Imagine the size of your wallet. Yet this is the ideal world envisaged by some of Malaysia's activists championing the Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham as a new form of legal tender to replace paper money – a utopia that could see the light of day as early as the middle of next month.
This is when one such group, Muamalah Council, plans to implement the dinar system in Malaysia's northern state of Kelantan. If information on its website is to be believed, the council has the blessing of the state's Islamist government, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (Pas), to kickstart the dinar in three moves. First, the state will pay a quarter of its public servants' salaries using the dinar. Second, all state companies will accept dinar payments. Lastly, some 600 commercial enterprises will also embrace this currency.
Inspired by selective religious sources and backed by historical precedents within the annals of Islamic history, the gold dinar system is touted by certain fiercely proud Muslims as the Islamic answer to thwart capitalism's woes. The idea was first mooted by Malaysia's former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. He argued that the coins would never hang their possessor out to dry in the same way that paper money had. As precious metals with intrinsic value, gold and silver are more resistant to market fluctuations and devaluation compared to the US dollar – an argument he took to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference as a tool to battle western hegemony.
Today, Islamic gold dinar advocates would cite the recent credit crunch as proof. Indeed, the rocketing price of gold – possibly transcending a record high of $2,000 an ounce – can only strengthen their pitch. While Mahathir's grand plan for Malaysia to implement the dinar system by 2003 may have been unceremoniously scrapped by his successor,
Abdullah Badawi, the idea has since gained currency beyond Malaysia's shores.
In neighbouring Indonesia, for instance, an outfit known as Wakala Induk Nusantara (WIN) had begun minting Islamic gold coins for use in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. Its spokesman, Riki Rokhman Azis, claims that the number of dinars used in the world's most populous Muslim nation has more than doubled in 2009 to 25,000 pieces. What is perhaps more striking is the UK connection to the increasingly globalised Islamic gold dinar movement. The Indonesian grouping is adhering to a fatwa issued by the South African-based cleric Sheikh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, a Muslim convert in Cape Town formerly known as Ian Dallas of Scotland.
Then there is Dinar Exchange, the British equivalent of Indonesia's WIN. As the "official certified supplier of Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham in the United Kingdom", the company had just concluded a month-long series of roadshows in May that saw it promoting the gold dinar to Muslims in key UK cities such as London, Birmingham and Edinburgh. The group is inviting more to spread this Islamic vision as dinar agents. For a fee, of course. As the dinar movement gathers momentum, its propagators – which include some of the Muslim world's most polemical figures such as the Trinidad-born cleric Imran Hosein – would doubtless dismiss Antony Lerman's recent suggestion in the Guardian that no credible anti-capitalist doctrine exists today. To them, the Islamic gold dinar is perhaps mankind's best-formulated answer to beat capitalism's excesses.
Yet, as an anti-capitalist weapon, the Islamic gold dinar is far from mint.
It is motivated by politics more than benign religious values. The Kelantan example is instructive. Implementing the Islamic dinar serves as a political statement to Muslim voters that Malaysia's Islamist opposition party, Pas, is more Islamic (and hence more legitimate) compared with its competitor, the United Malays National Organisation. Even in its Mahathir could be read as a radical attempt at power politics. But a more serious flaw lies in its contradiction. At the heart of the dinar system can still be found the same capitalistic spirit of commodification. It lacks the egalitarian spirit embodied in socialism's virtue of the common good. Its advocates say that the poor could never be taken advantage of because the coins they own have intrinsic value. But Britain's recent gold-rush dilemma suggests that the poor do not always get their money's worth – even when trading gold.
Like paper money, gold is also vulnerable to the manipulations of valuers, our gatekeepers of wealth. And let's be honest, how many of the poor have stacks of gold already in their possession? Gold is a precious metal precisely because it is so rare. On a wider scale, who is to prevent gold-rich nations from banding together as a cartel to fix prices at exorbitant amounts in the same way that the oil-producing nations of OPEC did?
Or multimillion corporations from exploiting poor but gold-rich nations? This is best exemplified in the case of Pacific Rim, a Vancouver-based firm that has filed an appeal via the Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta) to bypass local legislation so they can mine for gold in El Salvador despite local objections. In a world mired by climate change troubles, one also needs to mind the environmental cost of gold mining – an operation that involves huge amounts of water and toxic chemicals.
The Islamic gold dinar could not thwart capitalism's excesses. It is only providing one more avenue for exploitation. For this reason alone, it will not have my buy-in. By Nazry Bahrawi for The Guardian
India’s Look East policy was initiated out of failures: the failure of India’s cold war strategy of “playing both ends against the middle” while at the same time attempting to adopt a pro-Soviet “tilt,” and the failure of India’s command economy, which by 1990 had managed to command only 0.4 percent of world trade — insufficient to cushion India from the 1989-90 oil shock. While the collapse of the Soviet Union was no fault of India, it left New Delhi searching for an alternative set of economic and strategic approaches. Look East seemed to fit both needs.
India faced a hard task in clawing its way back into those parts of Asia to its east. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations itself was born out of concern about an encroaching communist bloc and tempered in the fires of the Vietnam War, and it viewed India’s still clunky economy and former Soviet bloc tilt with suspicion. India also took some time to learn Asian diplomatic mores. In 1994, in a major address in Singapore, Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao expressed surprise at the title of the speech he had been given — India’s “new” relationship with Asia.
Rao pointed out that India’s influence in Asia was hardly new; indeed, Indian religion and culture lie at the heart of today’s Southeast Asia. True enough, but that missed the point from Asean’s perspective. The Asean nations were a bunch of hard-nosed pragmatists intent on getting on with the job — and the job was developing and making money. Of course, Asean was only part of India’s Look East policy, as Vietnam and Burma had not yet jointed the association. India had a friendship with the former and was already rivals with China over the latter.
And Japan was being eyed as a source of technology and foreign direct investment.
But in Asia — and especially Asean — nothing succeeds like success. Asean only took notice of India once the latter appeared to be locked into 8 percent to 9 percent growth, a pattern now seemingly resumed. India is now much more highly regarded in Asean than it was in the 1990s. It has extensive defense dealings with Singapore, Australia and Japan and defense relationships with Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Yet for all this recent success, the India-Asean Free Trade Association was extremely hard-won. India’s farmers were committing suicide at unprecedented levels over supposedly unbridled agricultural imports caused by globalization.
The FTA, when it finally emerged in 2009, was not only intensely criticized in India but also highly protective of Indian agriculture, especially edible oils. It took more than six years to negotiate and will not be fully implemented for non-sensitive goods until 2016 (later for poorer countries and India). Ironically, as India has gained significant traction in Asean and other East Asian forums, those venues are being overshadowed by larger, and some would say ominous, regional developments.
Increasingly the debate has devolved onto the growing strategic, diplomatic and financial critical mass of China. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd saw this early on and tried to hone Asian security architecture to accommodate a rising China and provide it with a forum to be, if not first among equals, then equal among equals. The profound implication of this purpose was that all major powers should be part of that architecture, not least India. Increasingly, however, it looks as if the horses have fled from this particular stable. Rudd lost interest in his Asian architecture in favor of the G-20. More important, the rise of China and to a lesser extent India has “gone around the edges” of existing Asian architecture.
Initially at least, it looks as if China holds the key. How China chooses to rise to power in Asia will be the seminal factor in the future of Asian security. And further, how Sino-US relations unfold will be seminal to the process of how China rises. India is definitely there in the equation but not till some way down the track. Meanwhile, it is the Sino-US relationship that will define the character of China’s rise more than any other single factor, excepting, of course, the innate character of the Chinese polity.
So where does India fit in?
The United States knows it will lose power in Asia and even globally to China over the longer term. Hence the strategic quality of the India-US relationship, the fact that the nuclear deal between the two was intended above all to enable the United States to provide strategic military assistance to India, and that Washington remains unabashed that its intention is to build India over this century as a major strategic factor in Asia. At the moment India is especially weak vis-a-vis China. China can play virtually at will in India’s South Asian backyard. China’s great long-term enemy is, of course, demography. Not only will India be larger by 2030, but more significantly, it will have a higher proportion of young people than China.
But to take advantage, it needs to set in place labor and infrastructure policies to position it to become the new labor-intensive workshop of the world. Despite India’s long-term demographic advantage, China may well take after Japan and use its enormous capital reserves to substitute for labor. While Sino-US relations will initially hold the key, Sino-Indian relations will emerge as increasingly important as India gains in strength, increasing the prospect of an emerging strategic triangle between China, the United States and India.
At present, the United States and India each uses the other as a hedge against a difficult rise for China in Asia. Thus, what may one day become a strategic triangle cannot yet be accorded that label. Such a negative prospect depends both on how Sino-US and Sino-Indian relations develop. In terms of the Sino-Indian relationship, the most favorable term that could be used is ambiguous.
On the negative side, China has changed its position in relation to the border issue — now resolutely sticking to its claim to Arunachal Pradesh state. China is actively involved in the South Asian countries surrounding India, which is Beijing’s way of hedging against the possibility its vital energy secured lines of credit might one day come under pressure. Certainly, New Delhi would prefer if India were part of a concert of powers in Asia.
Although India will continue to get what it can from the United States and Israel in high-tech areas such as space, computation and anti-ballistic missile technologies, New Delhi believes India is too large ever to be any other country’s ally. India will also seek to have a range of relations with other large powers, including Russia, the EU, Japan and China. It avidly seeks to engage more successfully in resources competition in Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. But in either case — that of a concert of powers or of power balancing — it seems that the Look East policy may retreat to a moment in history — a moment when a tentative India was feeling its way, a relationship on the rebound, as it were. That is not to say, of course, that Southeast Asia will not remain extremely important to India in the strategic and to a lesser extent the economic spheres.
It is to say, rather, that Southeast Asia will be only one of many regions of importance to a rising, global power such as India.
By Sandy Gordon professor at the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence in Policing and Security at Australian National University.
