Asia Pacific

From March 23 until May 3, Zely Ariane will be touring Australia, speaking at Direct Action forums, at universities, to trade union meetings and at other venues. Ariane is the National Spokesperson of the Committee for the Politics of the Poor-Peoples Democratic Party (KPRM-PRD), one of Indonesia’s left-wing political parties. She is also active in the Indonesian Workers Solidarity Union (GSBI) and the National Womens Liberation Network (JNPM). She was interviewed for Direct Action by Max Lane.

By Sam King

An Australian company has a significant but little-known role in the creation of the world’s largest mud volcano, located in the densely populated Sidoarjo district of Indonesia’s East Java province. The eruption began at 5am on May 28, 2006, when the mining company Lapindo Brantas took the decision to drill a bore hole to a depth of 2.8 kilometres without a protective steel casing. The subsequent eruption killed 13 people and has displaced more than 40,000 through the destruction of 13 villages.

[For five months, 254 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers have refused to disembark the rickety cargo boat Jaya Lestari 5 which was towed into the Indonesian port Merak, after being intercepted by the Indonesian navy at the request of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. One pregnant woman onboard is due in early March. Her daughter has chicken pox and the rest of the 31 children on the boat are at risk of the disease. On February 12, the asylum seekers on the boat issued “A call for urgent action by the Indonesian and Australian governments”, which is reprinted below. The statement calls for a “just solution” for the stranded Tamil asylum seekers.]

By Jon Lamb

The East Timorese government is standing firm against pressure to sign a natural gas downstream processing deal for the Greater Sunrise field in the Timor Sea. Australian-based mining and exploration giant Woodside Petroleum, aided by the Northern Territory government, is pushing for the gas to be piped to and processed in Darwin, refusing to accept Dili’s preferred option of piping it to the southern coast of East Timor.

By Win Padauk Wah Han

Burma’s military government, the so-called State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), is planning to hold elections some time in 2010, on yet-to-be-announced date. This follows approval of a new constitution amid chaos following the deadly Nargis cyclone in 2008. The SPDC has already done a great deal to ensure that the nationwide elections won’t change much in the way the country is run.

By Max Lane

Abdurrahman Wahid, the president of Indonesia between 1999 and 2001, died on December 30, aged 69. His death was met by a wave of commentary and discussion praising his contribution to Indonesian society, especially from the humanitarian and liberal democratic sectors: intellectuals, NGOS and human rights advocates. These sectors, with some justification, lamented his death as a loss for those struggling against discrimination and for a broadening of civil liberties generally.

By Max Lane

On December 23, the Indonesian Attorney General’s Department announced the banning of five books. Soon afterwards, it became known that the attorney general is looking at possibly banning another 20 titles. This follows the banning of the film Balibo, which tells the story of Suharto’s invasion of East Timor and the suppression of history textbooks in 2007. There has been no repeal since Suharto’s ouster of any of the book bans imposed during the dictator’s rule.

By Sam King

At least 164,000 Tamil men, women and children were being held in military internment camps — without access to humanitarian agencies, independent monitors, media or local civil authorities — when Stephen Smith, Australia’s foreign minister, visited Sri Lanka on November 9, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

By Kerry Vernon

The Rudd Labor government’s refugee “Indian Ocean” solution to “unauthorised” asylum seekers arriving by boat has led to growing tensions among detainees in the Christmas Island detention centre. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has threatened those involved in the November 21 detention centre brawl with deportation. Immigration minister Chris Evans blamed the brawl on ethnic tensions in the detention centre, but Labor’s retention of mandatory detention and offshore processing has led to increasingly crowded conditions on Christmas Island.

By Jon Lamb

Twenty years ago, on December 11, 1989, the Australian and Indonesian governments signed the Timor Gap Treaty (TGT), giving the go-ahead to energy corporations to exploit the large natural gas and petroleum reserves located in East Timor’s territorial waters. The deal marked the conclusion of 10 years of delicate negotiations between the Suharto dictatorship and successive Australian governments. Access to these oil and gas reserves that the deal provided was a key strategic focus for Australian governments for nearly 30 years.