Pearl Harbor: Japan's oil blunder

In a sad admission of the passing of time, the Pearl Harbor survivors association used the 70th anniversary of the attack to announce they will disband at the end of the year. An estimated 8,000 people are still alive who survived the Japanese attack on Hawaii and some 2,700 of them are members of the association. But it has become too difficult to organise the annual national reunion in Honolulu. Association President William Muehleib cited the age and poor health of remaining members. "It was time. Some of the requirements became a burden," Muehleib said after this year’s ceremony at Pearl Harbor. (photo:Matt York/Associated Press)

The moment of silence at the ceremony was marked just before 8am when the first Japanese planes launched their attack. Tuesday, 7 December 1941 would become a day that would “live in infamy” as Roosevelt predicted when he responded to the attack. In two hours, 2,400 people would be killed, 1,200 wounded (a shocking discrepancy between the dead and wounded) 20 ships sunk and 164 planes destroyed. Yet the infamy FDR spoke about was not the death toll but the fact the Japanese had lied to him and attacked 30 minutes before they declared war.

The cause of Pearl Harbor, as so much of the 20th century’s conflict, was oil. Expansionist Japan was 80% reliant on US petroleum to fire its economy but knew the time would come when the alarmist Americans would turn off the tap. The US took a dim view of the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the subsequent war with China. Modern China retains so much bitterness about that war it still refuses to call the area Manchuria because it might legitimise Japanese claims. Instead it just called “North East China”.

From their puppet base in Manchukuo, belligerent Japan declared all out war on China in 1937. Relations with the US deteriorated with the USS Panay Incident that year when the Japanese sunk an American ship in Nangking and then the Allison Incident where US consul to Nangking John Moore Allison was struck in the face by a Japanese soldier. Japan said sorry for both incidents claiming it did not see the American flags on the Panay. It did not offer an excuse for Allison but bowed to US demands for an apology.

Despite the provocation, economic self-interest ensured the US kept supplying oil to Japan until 1941. It wasn’t until July that year they finally placed an embargo as did Britain. Crucially so did Dutch two months later, breaking an existing treaty with Japan and ending the possible increase in the supply line of Javanese oil which supplied 15% of Japanese crude. The embargo put a critical constraint on the conduct of the long-running war in China. Japan was the sixth largest importer of oil in the world. If Japan wanted to resume bombing Chiang Kai-Shek's and Mao Zedong’s armies, it would have to grab oil for itself and the East Indies was the easiest target.

While Pearl Harbor was a shock, the Pacific war was no great surprise. A majority of Americans expected war with Japan especially over the Philippines which held many strategic American interests. But Japan had other ideas. It was well aware it could not cope with planned American expansion of the Navy. The 1940 Two-Ocean Navy Act (sponsored by two Democrats Carl Vinson of Georgia and David Walsh of Massachusetts) planned to expand the size of the US Navy by 70%. Japan could never match this so struck a blow early before the Vinson-Walsh ships came off the assembly line.

An attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese believed, would also neutralise the existing Pacific Fleet to give Japan free reign to take Jakarta. Then the Americans would sue for a peace profitable to Japan. That this was flawed thinking is obvious in retrospect as was their complete failure to work out how the US would respond. Yet as a plan it no woollier than the thinking that led to another oil war while the execution was just as striking.

The 1941 attack was led by submarines. Five midget submarines came within 20km of the coast and launched their charges at 1am. At least four of them were sunk. Then the planes struck. There were almost 200 of them in the first group. A second wave of 170 flew closely behind. They were picked up by newly established radar on the northern tip of Oahu but misdiagnosed as a returning US crew and its immense size was not passed on to headquarters. At 7.48am they arrived at Pearl Harbor. The immediate target of the first wave was the battleships.

Japan believed that by targeting the battleships they would remove the biggest status symbols from the Navy. While they succeeded, they badly misread the importance of the technology. The sinking of one battleship the USS Arizona caused half the death toll on the day. Ten torpedo bombers attacked the ship. After one bomb detonated in the Arizona’s ammunition magazine, she went up in a deafening explosion. 1,117 of the 1,400 crew were killed instantly and the fire took two days to put out.

The second wave had various targets including hangars, aircraft, carriers and cruisers. After 90 devastating minutes, half the planes on Oahu were destroyed. A planned third wave to knock out Pearl Harbor’s remaining infrastructure was called off which Admiral Chester Nimitz admitted could have postponed US operations for another year. But Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo refused because of likely casualties and a need for night-time operations.

Despite this lapse, the Japanese did not rest on their success. Hong Kong was attacked a day later as were US territories Guam and Wake Island. The Philippines, a commonwealth of the US at the time, was also invaded on 8 December. The same day Japanese troops made an amphibious landing at Kota Bharu in north-eastern Malaya, and six points along the south-east Thailand, an invasion ended by an armistice which allowed Japan to use Thailand as a base to attack Malaya. Malaya had rubber and was the obvious dropping off point to access Dutch oil in soon-to-be Indonesia.

Only the US, Iran and Romania exported more oil than the East Indies in 1941 but the profits went to Amsterdam and Royal Dutch Shell not Jakarta. Borneo was another yet victim of the 8 December naval blitzkrieg threatening the oilfields of Kalimantan. The rest of the island archipelago quickly fell and would remain in Japanese hands until 1945 while the war was fought elsewhere. The three aircraft carriers that called Pearl Harbor home were out at sea during the attack and the elimination of its battleships gave the US no choice but to put the fate of the war in its carriers.

While the Europe First policy slowed down the Pacific Conflict it was almost over as soon as it began. A wrathful America armed with its new Navy and massive fighting capacity was never going to forgive Japan’s treachery. By July 1942, America sunk four of Japan’s own carriers at Midway. Japan used its fierce military pride, deadly code of honour, incessant pro-war propaganda and Indonesian oil to keep the insanity going for another three years.

Indian Ocean tsunami fifth anniversary

Incredibly, five years have now passed since the Indian Ocean tsunami struck on 26 December 2004. The scale of the devastation was immense and it occurred on a hemispherical scale. 230,000 lives were lost in 11 countries, five million people were affected and $5 billion of damage was caused by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. (photo by simminch)

The drama of the day started at 7am local time in Indonesia when an earthquake of between 9.1 and 9.3 magnitude struck the sea between the west coast of Sumatra and the small island of Simeule. The event lasted an unprecedented ten minutes tearing a massive rupture 1,600 kms long. Depending on who’s talking it was either the second or third highest magnitude earthquake of the 20th century. Either way it was immense. The shift of mass and the massive release of energy very slightly altered the Earth's rotation. It caused the sea bed to rise several metres displacing billions of tonnes of sea water in the process.

Because of the north-south 1,600km fissure caused by the quake, the greatest waves went east and west. It took about a half hour for the wall of water to reach nearest landfall on the Sumatran Coast. Northern Aceh was worst hit with waves rising 20 metres high and travelling almost a kilometer inland. Some coastal villages were devastated losing up to 70 percent of their inhabitants. In all 167,000 were killed in Indonesia and another 37,000 listed as missing. An estimated 655,000 people were made homeless.

After another hour, the waves hit southern Thailand and its west coast islands. The waves swept locals and tourists off the beaches. 8,000 people died in Phuket, Phi Phi and elsewhere and a similar number were injured. At the same time the westerly-heading waves slammed 10m high into the east coast of Sri Lanka killing another 35,000 people and it made over a million and a half people homeless. A further 68 people died in Malaysia. By another half hour, it was taking severe casualties in India’s Tamil Nadu and Burma. The waves demolished railways, bridges, telecommunications facilities and harbours. The salt water contaminated large tracts of rich arable land.

And still it kept coming. After another 90 minutes, the tsunami engulfed the low-lying Maldives killing 100 people and displacing another 20,000. And two and half hours later still – some six hours after the original quake – the mammoth waves made landfall in Somalia. 300 people died there with 50,000 made homeless and many more livelihoods lost as 2,500 boats were destroyed. Most of the deaths were caused by asphyxiation from the silt and sand within the “black water” of the tsunami.

A massive worldwide relief operation began almost immediately. The biggest ever peacetime launch of military relief effort arrived in Aceh led by emergency teams from Australia, India, Japan and the US. Apart from immediate medical needs, the biggest threat was secondary death from famine and disease. One of the most important early tasks in Sumatra was to provide purification plants and potable water. This was difficult in a region where the Indonesian army was hauling over a thousand bodies a day from the rivers. Forensic scientists were stretched to the limit to identify the deceased. The process was complicated by sweltering heat, inconsistencies in data collection procedures used in various countries, and jurisdictional challenges. Port, road and transport facilities also needed to be restored.

Undermining the recovery effort was the influx of aid workers and media personnel who consumed scarce resources, making the cost of living soar. There were at least 500 journalists and news crews in the affected zone. And the sensationalism of much of the reporting added to the trauma of the survivors. Aceh did eventually recover and the tsunami had one unintended benefit; it brought an end to the long running war between the Indonesian military and Acehnese separatists.

Dealing with earthquakes will always be one of the perils of living in geologically active Sumatra. As recently as October, over 500 people were killed and thousands trapped under rubble when a 7.6 magnitude quake struck West Sumatra. But it will never forget the events of 26 December, 2004. The psychological trauma of confronting 20 metre waves is too deep. As one 10 year old girl told AFP "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't forget. It's the same for my friends who survived.”

Timor Sea oil slick may now be lapping Indonesian shores

The West Timor Care Foundation has sent the Australian Greens a video claiming the 10-week Montara oil spill is now lapping the south shores of the island of Timor. The five minute video shows some oil slicks and dead fish in local fishing grounds (though when I entered the location coordinates shown in the video it oddly came up in Philippine waters). The government also doubts the slick has approached the Indonesian coastline and has announced no compensation measures as yet.

But while there is doubt over this video, there is little doubt that that Montara spill is a major catastrophic event happening most out of reach of Australian news cameras. From 21 August to 3 November a possible 140,000 barrels of light crude oil, gas and condensate leaked into the sea. Well owners PTTEP claimed the well leaked 400 barrels of oil a day but could never back up this estimate. The Australian government said the maximum flow could be as much as 2,000 barrels a day. After four unsuccessful attempts to fix it, it was eventually plugged when heavy mud was successfully injected into the underground leaking well. The spill was complicated by a major fire on the rig which was put out two days earlier.

But the vast amount of oil leaked into the sea continues to cause havoc. Both West and East Timor authorities have asked Australia to take urgent actions to stop the impact on their island. The governor of East Nusa Tenggara (Indonesian West Timor) said Australia must take “immediate measures” to halt the spill. Meanwhile East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta says the slick is impacting local fishermen’s livelihood and has requested compensation from Australia.

The Montara wellhead on the West Atlas rig is in Australian waters 250km northwest of the Truscott air base in Western Australia's Kimberley region and another 250km from the south Timor coastline. The rig is owned by Thai based oil company PTT Exploration and Production Public Company (commonly known as PTTEP) and run by its Australian subsidiary PTTEP Australasia Company Limited (PTTEP AA).

The problem started when a concrete plug 2.6km below the ocean floor cracked open leaking sweet crude oil, gas and condensate into the Timor Sea. The cause is not yet been announced. However an unnamed industry insider told WAtoday.com PTTEP knows what caused the problem. The source was working for PTTEP near the West Atlas rig on the day the leak occurred. He said one of six wells they were drilling began to leak because the company took corners by not plugging the well securely because they did not expect oil flow.

The company then went into panic mode as their increasingly desperate efforts failed to plug the leak. After three failed attempts, they invited Texan well control company Boots & Coots to review their operation. Other local industry companies Woodside, Inpex, Vermillion, AGR Petroleum Services and Apache also became involved on a “without prejudice” basis (to avoid liability) as the reputation of the Australian oil drilling industry plummeted. The rig then caught fire on the fourth attempt and took three days to put out. The leak was eventually plugging by steering a drill through rock 2.6km below the seabed to a 25cm diameter pipe.

After the problem was fixed, Resource Minister Martin Ferguson announced an inquiry into the matter to be headed by former senior public servant David Borthwick. The terms of reference are to report on the causes, the adequacy of the regulatory regime in response, the performance of those carrying out the response, environmental impacts and PTTEP’s role. Borthwick will have six months to carry out his investigation. The Australian Marine Conservation Society said the oil slick will leave a legacy for decades and called on the government to impose heavy sanctions and penalties on those responsible.

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert is also concerned the consequential impacts to Indonesia and East Timor may be outside Borthwick’s terms of reference. Minister Ferguson claims the spill is over 200kms from the Indonesian coastline. But Siewart called on the government to investigate the Timorese reports of oil contamination to see if they are linked to the Montara rig. "Australians expect that we will do the right thing by our near neighbours,” she said. “The Prime Minister needs to promise that he will ensure the company takes responsibility for impacts outside of Australian waters.”

Balibo at Brisbane International Film Festival

At the end of August East Timor celebrates the tenth anniversary of the remarkable referendum that would lead to its independence a year later. It was a stunning achievement for a country that had been forcibly occupied by Indonesia for 24 years after being abandoned by former colonial masters Portugal. The story of the fall of East Timor in 1975 is also one of Australia’s most shameful moments in foreign affairs and one that does no credit to either the Labor or Liberal governments that straddled the invasion period.

Tonight I went to the closing night of the Brisbane International Film Festival to see an important film about the period. Balibo (which today won two of BIFF's five jury prizes) tells the story of the five Australian and New Zealand television journalists who were killed at the border town for which the film is named. Balibo also tells the story of freelance reporter Roger East who was killed in Dili when he tried to find out the fate of the original five. All six were executed by Indonesian invaders a fact not admitted by Jakarta to this day. The official line is that the Balibo five were killed in “crossfire” while there has never been a satisfactory explanation for East’s death. Movie director Robert Connolly spoke to the audience of his desire for justice for these men before the start of the film and reiterated the point that this was an unashamedly political picture.

The lead character in Balibo is the sixth man, Roger East, played by Anthony LaPaglia who also produced the film. East was a Darwin based journalist in his early 50s who had served in the navy in World War II and covered many conflicts across the world as a journalist. As the Indonesian military build-up grew in late 1975, East was paying growing attention to what was going on across the Timor Sea. In October he was contacted by Jose Ramos Horta (played with great flair by American actor Oscar Isaac) who wanted him to set up a news agency in Timor to counteract Indonesian propaganda. East was reluctant but took the job when he heard that five journalists working for Channels Seven and Nine had gone missing in Balibo.

East arrived in Dili early the following month and on 10 November he scooped AAP and Reuters when he published eyewitness accounts of the death of the five journalists. The story of the five is interspersed with East's story in grainy flashbacks. According to the film East and Ramos Horta went to Balibo together but there is no evidence this actually happened. East did intend to travel to the front line but in the end the front line came to him. He stayed at the waterfront Hotel Turismo and refused Fretelin pleas to move to the rear of the town where he could escape to the mountains. The hotel was too handy to the telephones out of the country. So East was caught out when the invasion happened.

On 6 December, US President Gerald Ford and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited Jakarta where they gave Indonesia the green light for the overthrow of the “Communist” Fretelin government. The general invasion of East Timor "Operation Komodo" began a day later with parachute drops of Indonesian troops into Dili. At 7am, East left the hotel and went to the nearby Marconi communication centre. He contacted Darwin to say that troops were in the city and the airport had been taken. East also said he expected the communication centre to fall soon. As Desmond Ball and Hamish McDonald’s book “Death in Balibo, Lies in Canberra” says, this communication probably cost East his life. A Timorese misson sent to rescue him failed when it encountered heavy Indonesian resistance.

In the film Balibo, East was captured in the communication centre, but this is contradicted by Ball and McDonald’s account. They say he hid out in Dili for most of that day and night. However he was eventionally arrested either during the night or early the next morning and taken to the port. At 8am, eye-witnesses saw him with his hand tied behind his back with wire at the side of the pier. He was executed by rifle fire. His body floated in the water alongside dozens of others who were either associated with Fretelin or picked out because they were Chinese.

The newly installed Fraser Government followed the lead of Whitlam and did their bit to help Indonesia by confiscating pro-Fretelin transmitter equipment near Darwin. Over 130,000 people would die in the 24 bitter years of fighting that followed. But the Timorese never accepted their status as Indonesians and eventually wore the invaders down. Australia would eventually restore some of its reputation in Timor with its lead role in restoring peace under the UNMISET mission.

But Connolly and LaPaglia’s film is determined to get justice for the six Australians who died in the invasion. On the weekend LaPaglia said the filmmakers felt a responsibility to the families of the dead journalists. "For us to make a crap movie about their loved ones would have just been rubbing salt into the wound, so we took a great deal of care - assembling the script and cross-checking all the facts,” he said. “That's why it took seven years.” Despite it not quite being the "true story" it promises to be, the end product is well worth the wait.

Two new papers support Homo floresiensis as new species

Two new research paper published by Nature last week support the evidence that the so-called Indonesian “hobbit” skeletons belong to a separate human species. Homo floresiensis arrived on the island of Flores in the Lesser Sunda Islands a million years ago and lasted until they were probably wiped out by a volcano 10,000 years ago. Scientists have been unable to agree on the characterisation of the hobbit because although its brain is tiny, it has developed complex tools. The two new papers corroborate evidence to suggest they are a new species and not modern humans with abnormally small brains.

The first Nature paper says the feet of recently discovered miniature hominins found on Flores have a combination of human and more primitive features. An analysis of a Homo floresiensis fossil shows the dwarf-like creature walked in a different way from modern humans. The research does not take a definitive position on whether h. floresiensis is a new species or not. However the shape of the foot’s navicular bone similar to those of great apes, which means that they lacked an arch and were not efficient long-term runners. "Arches are the hallmark of a modern human foot," says William Harcourt-Smith, one of the paper’s authors. "This is another strong piece of the evidence that the 'hobbit' was not like us."

The research backs up similar findings about the fossil’s skull announced in January. The skull’s uneven shape was compared to modern humans and apes, as well as the fossil brain cases of early human ancestors. Karen Baab, a biological anthropologist at Stony Brook University in New York State said the unevenness was due to fossilisation. "The shape of the skull is consistent with what we would expect for a small archaic Homo," she said.

However, some scientists remain sceptical about the controversial find. Robert Eckhardt is a professor of developmental genetics and evolutionary morphology in the kinesiology department at Pennsylvania State University and co-author of a 2006 paper which concluded the shape of the skull represented “developmental abnormality." Eckhardt’s concern is the fossil’s tiny brain. "If it was three million years old, it wouldn't be a problem,” he said. “The problem is it is only 18,000 years old and it sticks out like a sore thumb."

A thumb is an accurate simile for the one meter tall Homo floresiensis. The first fossil was discovered at Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. It had human-like teeth with a receding forehead and no chin. The fossil was deemed to be somewhere between 38,000 and 18,000 years old. Archaeological evidence in the area found more bones from other individuals dating from 95,000 and 13,000 years ago. The first (and most complete) find was fully bipedal with a very small brain size of 417cc. It is this last statistic that causes most angst in scientific circles. It is similar to chimpanzees but only about one third the size of modern human brains.

But the second paper in last week’s “Nature” may have an answer to that puzzle too. An American Museum of Natural History study showed that dwarf mammals that live on islands evolved much smaller brains in relation to their body size than those on continental landmasses. The study looked at extinct pygmy hippos that lived on Madagascar and found their brain mass was 30 percent less than similar species on mainland Africa. Natural History Museum palaeontologist, Dr Eleanor Weston, says it may be advantageous to have smaller brains on isolated islands. “The brain is a costly organ that uses a lot of energy,” she said. "Whatever the explanation for the tiny brain of floresiensis relative to its body size, it’s likely that the fact that it lived on an island played a significant part in its evolution.”

It was long believed that no humans arrived on the isolated island of Flores until relative recent times (about 11,000 years ago) when homo sapiens arrived on boats. However in the 1960s a priest and part-time archaeologist Theodor Verhoeven found signs of a much earlier human presence. In the Soa Basin he found stone artefacts near stegodont (elephant ancestors) fossils, he said were around 750,000 years old. In the 1990s his claims were backed up when tools were dated and found to be 840,000 years old.

But no-one could find remains of actual humans until the first hobbit was found in Liang Bua which means "cool cave" in the local Manggarai language. The finders took the bones back to Jakarta where Peter Brown, a paleoanthropologist from Armidale’s University of New England, supervised cleaning, conservation, and analysis. The pelvic structure told him the bones were from a female. Brown soon realised he was dealing with an entirely new human species: Homo floresiensis. "To find that as recently as perhaps 13,000 years ago, there was another upright, bipedal…creature walking the planet at the same time as modern humans is as exciting as it was unexpected," he said. This find will keep on giving to science for many years to come. The challenge will now to find out how widespread the hobbits were and whether they came into contact with homo sapiens.

No sign of freedom for the Merauke Five

An article in yesterday’s Jakarta Post has confirmed that five Australians held in the Indonesian province of Papua will be detained until a Supreme Court verdict is handed down. The so-called “Merauke Five” have been detained since arriving in September last year and have been banned from leaving Papua province. The Post quoted the Head of Merauke Prosecutors' Office, Sudiro Husodo, who said the ban was issued by the Attorney General's Office (AGO) on April 2. The five remain stranded at Merauke’s airport where they have been staying since they were stopped from returning home seven weeks ago.

The five are William and Vera Scott-Bloxam, Keith Mortimer, Karen Burke and Hubert Hofer, all aged between 51 and 64. They are businesspeople involved in the tourist industry and live in Horn Island off the coast of far north Queensland. On 12 September last year they flew across the Torres Strait in a twin-piston P-68 aircraft piloted by William Scott-Bloxam. Their destination was Mopah airport one hour away in Merauke on Papua’s south coast. The plan was to stay for a long weekend under the mistaken belief they could get a visa on arrival.

The holiday quickly turned sour when the five were charged with illegally entering Indonesian territory. It didn’t help that Merauke is the centre of an insurgency of rebels who (unlike the Australian Government) have never accepted Indonesian’s illegal take over of West Papua in the 1960s. The five were initially accused of being spies and held at a community detention centre.

On 15 January the Merauke district court handed down its sentence. Pilot William Scott-Bloxam was sentenced to three years and fined 50 million rupiah (about $6,000 AUD) for flying a plane into Indonesia without security clearance. His four passengers were sentence to two years and fined 25 million rupiah. They appealed on the basis the court had ignored evidence which suggested the air crew had received verbal clearance to land. On 2 March, the five were released from prison on "humanitarian grounds" while lawyers prepared the appeal, but were still banned from leaving Merauke.

The appeal was heard by the Papuan High Court in Jayapura. This court overturned the sentences in March much to the disappointment of the Papua High Prosecution Office. The High Court ordered the five leave the country immediately by the same plane in which they arrived. However, the prosecution requested an appeal and called for a ban on the five leaving the country until the case is settled. The military then impounded their plane so that the High Court order could not be carried out. And because the case is now before the Indonesian Supreme Court, the five remain stuck indefinitely at the airport in Merauke.

According to Torres News publisher Mark Bousen, the affair has nothing to do with visa offences. Bousen has been in regular touch with the five since their detention. Writing in New Matilda in January, he said people are normally deported for visa offences not jailed. Bousen believed that the Indonesians are probably using the five either as trade bargaining chips or in revenge for the protection visas Australia issued to 43 West Papuan separatists in 2006. Bousen called it “a diplomatic power game between a paranoid, oppressive Indonesian Government and the latest in a succession of gutless Australian governments who, since 1963, have been afraid to take a stand against the brutality of our neighbours.”

Bousen said that at the start of the trial last year, the five were told they could expect a fine of about $4000 and to be sent home. One family member told Bousen that this outcome was agreed by prosecution, defence and judges alike. Then just before Christmas, authorities in Jakarta ordered the prosecution to seek the three-year jail term. Bousen berated the Department of Foreign Affairs for their “gutless” dealings with Indonesia on the matter. Bousen’s point seems valid. In February, the matter was raised in federal parliament and Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith washed his hands of the matter saying “When an Australian citizen, an Australian national, comes into contact with the legal system of another country, there is a limit to what Australia can do.”

Smith made it clear in March just how limited his actions would be when he appeared on ABC’s Lateline. Smith claimed the five were not prisoners and said their status was now "city detention". According to Smith, this meant they could remain in Merauke pending the outcome of the Supreme Court appeal. “So they effectively have what is described as a licence to the city, but we are giving them consular assistance,” he said. This is craven. As Tony Jones said, at worst the five are guilty of stupidity and Australia should be doing more to get them home. Mark Bousen nails the problem well: “The Australian Government's seemingly endless lack of courage is compounded by an ineffectual Department of Foreign Affairs and the blatant lack of independence of the Indonesian judiciary.”

ASEAN ignores Burmese Rohingya refugee crisis

There seems little likelihood that the plight of Burmese Rohingya refugees will be discussed at the ASEAN leaders Summit this week. Rohingyas are victims of racial discrimination in their own country and their plight came to international attention after Thailand admit they had towed a thousand refugees out to sea. Vitavas Srivihok, Thai director of ASEAN Affairs Department, said talks about Rohingya would at best be marginalised to the “sidelines” of the conference and even then expects little by way of concrete outcomes. The conference’s contempt for Rohingya shows yet again ASEAN’s disinterest in human rights issues.

The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim community, with a long history, inhabiting Arakan province of Burma. Their ethnicity and religion has made them a target of oppression by Burmese military rulers. In a move reminiscent of Nazi discrimination against Jews, a Burmese 1982 law stripped them of their right to citizenship. Rohingya also endure restrictions affecting their movement, education, and freedom to marry. They are often forced into slavery, have their land confiscated and suffer arbitrary arrests, torture, and extra-judicial killings. Today the Rohingya have become increasingly landless and jobless forcing many to flee the country.

The Rohingya refugee issue is now an international problem affecting Burma, India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia. One thousand of them set off for Bangladesh in December and were detained and beaten when they landed in Thailand. But Thailand decided to export the problem. The refugees were forced back to sea in boats without engines or food. Hundreds died but hundreds more were rescued in Indian and Indonesian waters after several weeks at sea. On 7 January, 198 of them were found by Indonesian fishermen adrift at sea off Aceh, in northern Sumatra. Indonesian authorities say they have now rescued about 400 Rohingya migrants while Indian authorities at Andaman Islands have said they have also rescued hundreds of refugees. India plans to deport them back to Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, Thailand initially denied claims that its security forces abused the refugees. However in an interview with CNN last week, Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva admitted Thai security forces towed away the boats. Vejjajiva gave the unconvincing answer that he could not pinpoint which government official approved the practice, but claimed he was working on fixing the problem. "All the authorities say it's not their policy, but I have reason to believe some instances of this happened, said the PM. “If I can have the evidence as to who exactly did this I will certainly bring them to account."

But while the world should rightly judge Thailand harshly for its conduct in this shameful affair, Burma’s role should not be forgotten. Ye Myint Aung, the Burmese Consul-General at the Hong Kong consulate exposed what authorities really think of their minority in an extraordinary letter (pdf) addressed to the peninsula’s consular corps and media. In it, Aung denied Rohingya were Burmese. The Burmese, said Aung were good looking with “fair and soft” complexion. Rohingyas, by contrast had “dark brown” skin and were “ugly as ogres.”

Unfortunately, as New Mandala points out, the racism Ye Myint Aung shows against Rohingya is not unusual in Burma. New Mandala blames academics for stoking up “institutionalised chauvinism and historical memories built around communal conflicts from the last century”. Spurious research questioning their heritage gives people an excuse to distrust Rohingyas even though most have never met one.

But there are still groups around who are working to improve the Rohingya's lot. The Arakan Rohingya National Organisation wrote an open letter to the heads of ASEAN on the weekend which said that Burmese persecution of Rohingya people was a violation of the ASEAN Charter to respect human rights and international law. They called on the leaders to address the root cause of the Rohingya refugee problem and boatpeople crisis, pressurise Burma’s rulers to end human rights abuses and also urged Thailand to pay compensation to the families of Rohingya boatpeople who drowned.

The international peak political body for Burmese ethnic groups is also calling on the Australian government to push for the case for democracy in Burma. The Ethnic Nationalities Council represents seven ethnic Burmese groups Burma comprising 40 percent of the population. The Council's vice chair, Dr Lian Sakhong, told Foreign Affairs and Immigration officials that Australia should call for multi-party talks on Burma “to put pressure on the military regime so that we can have a dialogue.”

Sakhing said the talks should lead to a negotiated settlement to return Burma to democratic rule and also end ethnic oppression of Rohingyas and other groups affected by the 1982 citizenship laws. "We need to review the constitutions that are adopted by the military, so that we can have a compromise,” he told ABC’s Connect Asia. “If we don't do that, then the result will be another 50 years of civil war.”

The betrayal of the Balibo Five

The Melbourne International Film Festival has announced that Robert Connolly’s new film “Balibo” will be premiered at their 2008 event in July-August. Connolly is the director of “The Bank” and “Three Dollars” and his third film is currently filming in Darwin. Connolly may struggle to meet the festival date as he is finding it difficult to get accommodation for his cast and crew in Darwin’s tourist high season.

The film stars Anthony LaPaglia as Australian journalist Roger East who investigated the murder of five fellow journalists at the border town of Balibo during the Indonesian invasion of Portuguese Timor in 1975. East himself died in Dili at the hands of the Indonesian Army but it is the fate of the Balibo Five he investigated that has had the bigger profile as facts emerged after the event that cast shame on two Australian Governments of the era: Whitlam’s and Fraser’s.

Despite the fact there have been multiple official enquiries about the incident, the most forensic analysis of what actually happened in Timor appears in the book “Death in Balibo: Lies in Canberra” by Desmond Ball and Hamish McDonald. Ball is an intelligence expert with telling insights into the activities of the shadowy Defence Signals Directorate, the Australian government body charged with listening in on Indonesian operations. McDonald meanwhile was at the scene of the crime near the time. His fortune was that he was a Jakarta-based reporter (for the Sydney Morning Herald and the now defunct National Times, among others) so he saw the scene from the winning side.

This was not the case for five men who tried to report the war for Australian TV from the Timorese side. While it may amaze those that watch the rubbish served up by Channels Seven and Nine in the name of news these days, it was reporters from these stations that died while trying to tell the story. Their crews deliberately rushed to the border to report the unfolding story of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor.

It was a complicated story. Timor was a historical curiosity and a hangover from the earliest times of European navigation when Portugal was a major power. Their fall from power can be traced to the independence of Brazil in 1822, but they continued to maintain a scattered empire in the 20th century in places such as Angola, Mozambique, Goa, Macao and Timor. India liberated Goa in 1961 and the rest of the empire fell apart when the long-standing Portuguese dictatorship was overthrown in 1974.

Timorese nationalists felt the winds of change and several liberation groups began to agitate for a role in their own destiny. The largest of these, Fretelin, took their stamp from Mozambique and were steeped in 1970s socialist liberation ideas. Its leaders included the journalist Jose Ramos-Horta and army lieutenant Roque Rodrigues. They sought the earliest possible independence from Portugal.

The second was the Timorese Democratic Union, the UDT, which was favoured by the 25,000 Portuguese-speaking middle class of the island. They were more favourable to Lisbon but also wanted eventually independence with a more cautious timetable of a decade or more. The least influential group of Timorese were the Association for the Integration of Timor with Indonesia which became known as Apodeti. Not only unpopular within Timor, they were mostly ignored by their larger neighbour until about 1974.

While Jakarta adopted a position of a Pan-Indonesian nation when it gained independence after World War II, it was content to set its borders as the old Dutch East Indies colony to begin with. This included West Papua which it annexed in 1961. But it left the Portuguese colony alone until its interest was pique by the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship in the 1974 carnation revolution.

In September that year Indonesian President Suharto’s plans for Timor were boosted by a visit of Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. According to the official Australian record of that trip, Whitlam explicitly stated Portuguese Timor should become part of Indonesia but only with the “properly expressed wishes” of the people of Portuguese Timor. Indonesia knew it could never influence the Marxist-leaning Fretelin, but with the support of Apodesi it could possibly buy off the middle-class UDT.

Meanwhile the Australian government began to assist Indonesia in its ambitions by denying Fretelin all official succour. They refused hospitality to Ramos-Horta in the Dili consulate and would not meet him in Canberra. Portugal was no help either as it dealt with its own internal problems. Throughout the rest of 1974 and into 1975 Jakarta began to launch a military build-up around East Timor. Radio stations blasted pro-Indonesian propaganda across the border claiming that Communist Fretelin were victimising the pro-Indonesian “majority”.

Australia was well aware of the build-up. The Indonesians went as far as briefing the Australian embassy of their plans, cleverly counting on the fact that if the Aussies didn’t complain to begin with, they were complicit in the eventual invasion. But if the Australian Government was compliant, the country’s media was not and was increasingly asking Canberra questions about the fate of Timor.

The trigger for action was the UDT coup of August 1975. In an effort to counter the growing strength of Fretelin, UDT took control of the Timorese capital Dili and sent the small Portuguese force packing. But this backfired when Fretelin overwhelmed them four days later. By September Fretelin had de facto control over East Timor.
The coup sent Australian newspapers and broadcasters scrambling to get people on the ground to report the quickly changing situation. Against a Government ban, then Channel Nine news director Gerald Stone and his boss Kerry Packer hired a fishing trawler to cross to Dili. Stone said Packer took his own arsenal along to enjoy target practise from the back of the boat. Fretelin encouraged journalists to come. Ramos-Horta said later: “it was the only weapon we had in this fighting for influencing, [and] for winning sympathy around the world”.

Channel Seven sent a three man crew to investigate the war. The crew’s reporter was 29 year old Greg Shackleton. Shackleton was keen for a challenge, bored as he was with his Melbourne round of stories on domestic politics, car sales and industrial disputes. With him went 27 year old New Zealand cameraman Gary Cunningham and 21 year old sound recorder Tony Stewart. Shackleton’s boss told him to be careful and avoid “foolhardiness”.

Fresh from the success of their trawler raid into Dili, Nine’s Stone wanted to launch a second expedition to obtain proof of Indonesian incursion into Timor. He sent in a two man team: 28 year old Scottish born reporter Malcolm Rennie and British cameraman Brian Peters who had accompanied Stone and Packer to Dili on the trawler. Stone also warned them against adventurism and told them the object of the trip was to get the story out.

Both crews were on the ground in Dili and working by 10 October 1975. All five men had just four days to live. The Seven crew drove to the Indonesian border accompanied by a Fretelin driver. On the 12th, Melbourne’s Seven news carried Shackleton’s earlier report from Dili of the Indonesian capture of a border village. A day later the two Nine men arrived in Balibo where they met the Seven crew. Balibo was the most forward position held by Falintil, Fretelin’s armed wing. An Indonesian frigate lay close to shore off the Indonesian border town of Motaain. Rennie interviewed Ramos-Horta near the border. Ramos-Horta predicted a “massive attack” and took both crew’s footage back with him to Dili. The Australians settled in an abandoned house they dubbed “the embassy” or occasionally the “Commonwealth Secretariat” to take into account the Brits and Kiwis in their ranks.

The last footage of the men alive was taken by Portuguese TV which was in Balibo on the 15th. Their film showed four of the men drinking beer in the square with their shirts off. It also showed their house with a sign and flag painted “Australia”. Next to it was a slogan “Falintil esta sempre com o povo Maubere” (Falintil is always with the Maubere people). Maubere was the Fretelin word for the East Timorese common man. Before the Portuguese left, the Australians asked them had they any beer or wine as they expected to stay in Balibo a few days.

Both Indonesian and Australian authorities were aware of their presence there. Indonesia was about to get into serious phase of “Operation Flamboyant” – their covert war in Timor. They were not about to let five nosy journalists get in the way of their ambitions and made plans to execute them as a matter of priority once they took Balibo. Their plans to do so were intercepted by the blandly named Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), Australia’s most secret intelligence organisation. The DSD grew out of Australia’s wartime collaboration with British and American forces to intercept radio transmissions and break ciphers.

By the 1970s, the key countries that the DSD were monitoring were Indonesia and China. DSD knew exactly what Operation Flamboyant was all about and also knew that five journalists were in the danger area. They intercepted one message about them that said “we can’t have any witnesses”. Whitlam’s Government knew this too. But with Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser about to instigate the dismissal by pulling the pin on supply, Whitlam’s own tenure was too insecure to worry about five journalists in Timor.


The invasion began at midnight 15 October with sustained mortar attacks on the border towns. By the following mid morning, armed attackers appeared in Balibo. There is conflicting testimony to what exactly happened to the five journalists. However the broad consensus is that Indonesian soldiers fired into the “embassy” before one of the journalists emerged. He was motioned to a back wall where he was killed with a knife in the back.

Another Timorese witness saw three more bodies inside the house slumped in chairs at the table while a fourth body lay against a wall. Others heard orders to “shoot them all”. Later, the Apodesi commander of the raid Tomas Goncalves boasted of having killed two himself with a knife. The Indonesians then burned all five bodies. The DSD intercepted a signal about the journalists which said “we already have them under control”.

Fretelin reported the five men as missing on the 17th. Later that day, Canberra and the embassy in Jakarta were alerted to the DSD intercepted signal. Their reaction was to pass blame to the TV networks for sending their men into a danger area. But to protect the DSD, they could not publicly acknowledge the men were dead. Jakarta wanted to conceal its involvement in what it pretended was a “civil war” while a complicit Canberra didn’t want their knowledge of it exposed.

On 20 October, the Jakarta daily Kompas reported an interview with the UDT leader who said the bodies of “four men” were found in a house in Balibo. This was corroborated by more evidence later in the week that Westerners had died but the numbers were always fuzzy. For three weeks, the Government pleaded ignorance until Whitlam wrote to Suharto asking for confirmation. Suharto never responded and Whitlam was sacked four days later.

A month after their deaths, Indonesian secret police handed Australian ambassador Richard Woolcott a box containing charred human remains, camera gear, notepapers and papers belonging four of the men. The next of kin of the men did not find out until 5 December, the day the remains of the journalists were buried in a Jakarta cemetery. The mourners were embassy staff and spouses, resident Australian journalists and one Indonesian journalist.

By then Indonesian forces had invaded Dili. Roger East was there to see them land. He reported most of the town’s citizens had fled to the hills. He refused pleas by Fretelin to retreat to the back of town. Instead he went to the communication centre where he said Indonesians were in the city, had taken the airport and would be at his building at any moment. This transmission cost him his life. But while the death of six Australian journalists in defence of freedom is a tragedy, it is far less than the one of a million Timorese that gave their life to their country over the next 25 years. The lesson of Balibo is that Canberra’s appeasement of Indonesia was not only cowardly – it was proved wrong by time. Suharto was overthrown in 1997 and Timor Leste became independent three years later. The 1975 graffiti held good: Falintil was always with the Maubere people.

Suharto dies

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has declared a national week of mourning after former long-term president Suharto finally died today following a long illness. The 86 year old Suharto was admitted to hospital on 4 January with failing kidneys, hearts and lungs. Doctors prolonged his life through dialysis and a ventilator, but he stopped breathing on his own overnight before slipping into a coma today. He died of multiple organ failure. Suharto dominated Indonesian politics from his accession to power in 1967 until he was forced to resign in 1998. While Indonesia mourns the passing of a respected leader who improved the country’s standing in world affairs, the reaction in the rest of the world is likely to be more mixed reflecting Suharto’s long, brutal and graft-ridden regime.

Suharto grew up in central Java and was trained in the military by the Japanese during their occupation of the Dutch East Indies in World War II. He then fought the Dutch at the end of the war and served in the new national army after independence in 1950. He rose though the ranks to be one of the most senior military leaders by the mid 1960s. In 1965 Suharto began the process of a brutal seizure of power from Indonesia’s first president Sukarno with the help of the CIA after the Americans believed Sukarno’s so-called “guided democracy” was leading the country down a likely Communist path. In the purges that follow, somewhere between 300,000 and million suspected Communist supporters were murdered on Suharto’s orders. Sukarno was finally stripped of power in 1967 and Suharto was elected president a year later.

Suharto ruled with in totalitarian fashion and posted soldiers in every village. On economic matters, he relied on a group of American-educated economists, nicknamed the "Berkeley Mafia," to set policy. Together they succeeded in delivering at least 7 percent annual economic growth for three decades. He initiated a successful family planning program that, unlike China, did not rely on coercion. The Indonesian economy was opened up to foreign investment, and became a darling of the World Bank and at the International Monetary Fund. Yet Suharto and his children also built up assets estimated at $30 billion in 1989.

Suharto was finally undone by the Asian financial crisis of 1997. In early 1998 he was re-elected president seventh time unopposed. This time Jakarta erupted with pro-democracy riots. 2,000 people were killed and 5,000 buildings were destroyed in Java and Sumatra. Troops secured the airport and government offices and schools were closed while 30,000 students occupied the government buildings. Suharto attempted to face down the protesters. However General Wiranto stepped in and urged him to reconsider. Finally the wave of domestic and international pressure told and Suharto reluctantly stood aside. Suharto retired to a family compound in Central Jakarta, making few public appearances.

The Indonesian military has guaranteed the safety of the Suharto family and its ill-gotten gains of tens of billions of dollars. Armed forces commander and then Minister of Defence Wiranto gave the guarantee to the family when Suharto gave up the presidency in 1998 and it has been honoured by all his successors. Despite his departure, the Suharto family continued to lead the predator class along with its corporate and banking cronies. They operated a system of “plunder by corruption” aided and abetted by senior bureaucrats, state industry executives, police, army generals and a “court mafia” of compliant judges, prosecutors and officials.

Under the reformasi program of President Wahid, Suharto’s son Hutomo (known as Tommy) went to jail for ten years for arranging the murder of a judge who sentenced him to eighteen months for his role in a land scam in September 2000. Also in 2000, Suharto himself was placed under house arrest while authorities investigated his regime’s corruption. But Suharto was saved when court-appointed doctors announced that he could not stand trial because of his declining health. State prosecutors tried again in 2002 but then doctors cited an unspecified brain disease. The last few years have been a long slow decline interspersed with continual legal wrangling.

UN offers hope to Timor-Leste

The UN has pledged to reform East Timor’s police and military after the gun battles that tore at the heart of the new country last year. General-Secretary Ban Ki-Moon made the pledge after meeting Timorese president Jose Ramos Horta in the capital Dili on Friday. Timor-Leste has made perilous progress to democracy since its separation from Indonesia in 1999 and last year saw several weeks of anarchy and gang warfare that was only ended by a strengthening of the UN force. Now Ban promised that the UN and the international community “will fully support reform of the security force and judiciary.”

This is good news designed to protect East Timor’s fragile democracy and its hard won independence from Indonesia. The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste founded in 2002 was the world’s first 21st century sovereign state and one of the poorest. In 1975 it declared its independence from a Portugal, which was convulsed in its own struggle for democracy. But after a few short weeks of civil war between feuding parties East Timor was annexed by Indonesia.

For the next 27 years its official UN status would remain that of "self-governing territory under Portuguese administration”. This was a crucial distinction: While it was a de facto Indonesian province with the explicit and implicit approval of successive American and Australian governments, it remained on the UN agenda. But the cold war imperatives that caused the US to overlook Suharto’s excesses no longer existed in the 1990s. With the world seeing film footage of Indonesian atrocities, the tide turned and by 1999 with Suharto gone, Indonesia offered a surprise independence referendum. 78.5 percent of East Timorese voted in favour of independence.

The story of the former Portuguese colony’s long road to freedom is achingly told in David Scott’s Last Flight Out of Dili. David Scott has devoted much of his life to the cause of Timor-Leste. He was one of the last Australians to set foot in the colony before Indonesia’s illegal invasion in 1975. He was there on behalf of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid charged with the mission of finding out the consequences of Fretelin’s unilateral declaration of independence from Portugal. As the Indonesian forces closed in, he stayed on to help at Dili hospital. He was eventually evacuated with the last flight out of the country avoiding the inevitable execution that awaited those few foreigners that remained.

That fate had befallen five journalists for Britain, Australia and NZ two months earlier on the border between West and East Timor. They became known by the border town in which they were slain: the Balibo Five. They were executed under the orders of Indonesian commanding officer Yosfiah Younus who would become Minister of Information in the 1998-99 government of BJ Habibie.

After the Indonesian invasion, responsibility for resistance fell to the 35,000 strong Falintil (Armed Forces for the Liberation of Timor) who fought from the mountains for next 24 years. Thousands of civilians gave clandestine support and sent reports to the outside world in the face of a media blackout. They faced a 30,000 strong Indonesian army equipped with the latest in American and British equipment. Casualties were roughly even on both sides, about 13,000 to 15,000 died on each side.

Scott accused Australia of four major betrayals in the long independence struggle. The first was in World War II. He quotes Swiss historian Henry Frei who says Japan had no intention of invading neutral Portuguese Timor. Portugal was determined to remain neutral to be a negotiating channel. However a force of 400 Australian troops landed in the province giving Japan the excuse to invade. 40,000 Timorese died in the subsequent occupation.

Scott cites the second betrayal as Gough Whitlam’s support for Timorese integration with Indonesia in 1975 before President Suharto himself was totally convinced by his generals. Throughout his political career Whitlam remained a staunch supporter of Indonesia’s right to the province. Whitlam was aware about the Balibo attack and told the Indonesians his government would not stand in the way of an invasion. His legacy was upheld by the Fraser government that replaced him after the December 1975 dismissal. Australia refused Jose Ramos Horta entry for 8 years and closed down a Darwin radio station that was the only link to Timor from the outside world. The Hawke, Keating and Howard governments that followed Fraser all supported the ‘de jure’ status of Indonesia’s occupation.

The third betrayal occurred in 1999 after the UN Security Council guaranteed the East Timorese the right to campaign and vote in the referendum without fear. This was subverted by Indonesian army elements that conducted a campaign of terror, organised militias, and tried to intimidate people into not voting for independence. Then after the vote, the embittered Indonesians unleashed a scorched earth policy of revenge that levelled East Timor's towns and villages and left hundreds dead. Not until Dili was destroyed did Australia offer troops to lead a UN intervention force.

Scott says that there was a fourth betrayal that occurred around the same time. Australia had intelligence intercepts of Indonesian army plans to terrorise the population ahead of the referendum and also knew about its plan to destroy the new nation if the referendum succeeded. But John Howard’s government refused to divulge this information to either Indonesia or the UN.

It wasn’t until Australian NGOs and unions took action, did the Government move. The level of public anger about the rape of East Timor took many by surprise and it was grassroots action that had the most effect. The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) banned the movement of all Indonesian freight. Churches and community organisations protested about the tragedy that was apparently happening “next door”. Finally an 8,000 strong multi-national InterFET (International Force for East Timor) contingent led by Australian Major-General Peter Cosgrove arrived in the country. They showed great skill negotiating Indonesian acceptance of the mission and the Indonesian withdrawal.

On 29 December 1999, the Indonesian flag was lowered for the last time in Dili. The UN became the transitional authority with a two year timetable for rebuilding and preparing East Timor for self-government. Portugal finally recognised its old colony’s independence in May 2002 as did Indonesia and Timor-Leste took its seat in the UN three months later. But the transition has been painful.

Fierce fighting between former allies broke out in May 2006 and there were renewed clashes in the run-up to the 2007 presidential election. That election was won by 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta. He now says he wants Australian-led international troops to stay at least until the end of 2008 and the U.N. mission until 2011. "We will review it along the way together with the United Nations," Ramos-Horta told reporters after meeting Kevin Rudd today. "We should not repeat the mistakes of the past, a hasty withdrawal of the UN and our friends."

Malaysia turns 50 today, mostly

Thousands celebrated today in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, as the country marks 50 years of nationhood. Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi used an anniversary speech to urge people to unify as a nation. "We must ensure that no region or community is left behind," he said. "We will hold true to the concept of justice and fairness for all citizens." The celebrations mask a debate which is growing about what it means to be Malaysian in the ethnically diverse nation.

Ethnic Malays make up slightly more than half of the 27 million population but control less than 20 per cent of the economy. There is significant resentment of the 24 percent Chinese minority who control 40 percent of the economy. There is simmering resentment under the surface that occasionally manifests as race riots. However a now prosperous Malaysia is hoping the anniversary will usher in a new era of tolerance

The anniversary is not a true commemoration of the federation of Malaysia – that did not occur until 1963. The 1957 event was the independence of peninsular Malaysia only or Malaya as it was then known. The nation had a torrid birth occurring as it did before the Malaya Emergency had come to an end. The emergency lasted from 1948 to 1960 and was a war between an Anglo-Malay force and a Chinese backed Communist insurgency. The Communist force was made up overwhelmingly of Malaya’s Chinese population, a matter that still causes resentment today.

Despite the emergency, Britain handed over power to Kuala Lumpur on 31 August 1957 on a night of pomp and circumstance to first Prime Minister Tengku (Prince) Abdul Rahman. Amid shouts of “merdeka” (freedom) Rahman pledged to defeat the Communists. The British withdrawal proved a shrewd move as the insurgency lost much of its motivation with the colonial power out of the picture. The last serious resistance from the Communist guerrillas ended with a surrender at Telok Anson marsh in 1958. The remaining rebel forces fled to the Thai border and further east.

In 1963 the Malayan federation was renamed Malaysia with the admission of the then-British crown colonies of Singapore, Sabah (British North Borneo) and Sarawak. Brunei was also due to enter the federation but withdrew after a revolt in December 1962. The Brunei revolt caused Indonesian president Sukarno to announce his opposition and he called on the Indonesian people to adopt a policy of Konfrontasi against the proposed new state. Indonesian volunteers infiltrated Sarawak and Sabah and engaged in raids and sabotage and spread propaganda. They also attacked the Malay peninsula which was defended by the British navy. The attacks went on until 1966 when Sukarno lost power in a coup d’etat.

While Malaysia successfully held on to Sarawak and Sabah, they lost Singapore. The island state was expelled in 1965 after a heated ideological conflict between the state's government and the federal Kuala Lumpur government. The more racially diverse Singapore objected to the new Malay policy of “bumiputra” - racial discrimination in favour of the native Malays. Now constitutionally enshrined and supported by the New Economic Policy, Bumiputra means “sons of the soil” and was seen as a necessary policy of affirmative action for Malays who were supposedly disadvantaged by the heavy presence of immigrants in the Malay Archipelago during colonial rule.

The legacy of bumiputra affects Malaysia today. The government does not impose any restrictions on minority races, who are free to practice their own culture, religion and education. Nevertheless, the races that make up its multicultural population remain poles apart. They have separate friends and lead separate social lives. Most Chinese and Indians send their children to Mandarin and Tamil language schools while the Malays attend national institutions. Former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim now proposes to reform the political landscape to promote national harmony. "We need to appeal to the Malays, Chinese and the Indians and the rest that we need to go beyond race-based politics,” he said. “If you continue to harp and support this racial equation, you will never be able to overcome racial divisions”.

Another threat to Ambon's fragile peace

The Dutch Moluccan community have issued a press release complaining of Indonesian torture on the island of Ambon. They claim 31 Moluccan activists were arrested on 29 June after they waved the banned Moluccan separatist flag in front of the Indonesian president. They claim the 31 were denied jail visits and other arrests have followed taking the total number to 44. The Indonesians may be coming down hard to avoid a repeat of the violent scenes that marred the island between 1999 to 2002 and again in 2004.

The island of Ambon is part of the Moluccas group (west of Papua) now an Indonesian province known as Maluku. Ambon is half Christian and half Muslim. The island and other parts of the Malukus were ravaged by three years of Muslim-Christian clashes that killed more than 5,000 people before a February 2002 peace pact took effect. Sporadic violence has continued and tension between the two communities remains high in Ambon and several surrounding small islands.

Ambon has an illustrious history. From ancient times, the Moluccas were a renowned source of cloves and nutmeg for the world market. The Portuguese were first Europeans to establish a settlement on Ambon in 1521. The first Dutch sailors arrived in the Spice Islands in 1599. In the 17th century the Dutch United East Indies Company, Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie, obtained a monopoly on the export of cloves. The VOC brought almost the entire Indonesian archipelago under its control by the 18th century. They folded in 1789 and passed control of the territories to the Dutch government. As a result of international interest in the islands, the Moluccas were left with a diverse mixture of religions - Muslim, Catholic and Protestant, all blended with local customs.

Ambon was a major battlefield in World War Two. The island was defended by 2,500 Netherlands East Indies troops who were joined in December 1941 by a 1100 strong “gull force” of the 2/21st Battalion, from the 8th Australian Division together with anti-tank, engineer, medical and other detachments. The Japanese were eager to acquire the Dutch oilfields and attacked from the air. They landed on the island on 30 January 1942. After four days of bitter fighting, they overwhelmed the under-equipped and poorly prepared Australian and Dutch. Over 300 men defending Laha airfield were summarily executed and buried in mass graves. Ambon remained in Japanese hands until the end of the war and the island’s POWs were subjected to some of the most brutal treatment of the war. Three-quarters of the Australian prisoners died in captivity and 694 members of Gull Force are buried on the island.

After the war, Indonesia rushed to declare its independence from the Netherlands. A 'War of Decolonization' pitted Indonesia nationalists, mainly from Java against the Dutch supported by the Moluccans. In 1950 the south Moluccan islands declared independence as the Republik Maluku Selatan but was quickly defeated by Indonesian troops. The RMS retreated into an irregular guerrilla war until its leaders were caught and executed in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the Moluccans began a terror campaign in the Netherlands killing a policeman, occupying the Indonesian embassy and hijacking trains.

The islands themselves remained quiet until the end of the century. The problems began with a revival of Islamic radicalism after Suharto’s downfall in 1998. The Moluccas, more than 2,500kms from Jakarta became a huge training camp for Islamic hardline groups, the biggest of which was Laskar Jihad, which had links to Al Qaeda. Ambon's reputation for religious tolerance began to fragment as more Muslims migrated and took jobs in the local bureaucracy. By 1999, tensions had turned to violence. Churches and mosques were destroyed, thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands became refugees.

On 12 February 2002, the eleven point Malino Peace Accord was signed by 80 delegates from the Muslim and the Christian communities of Maluku. The US State Department hailed the agreement as the “key to resolving the conflict in the Moluccas and…an important step in Indonesia's efforts to end violence, re-establish the rule of law and provide for reconstruction in the troubled province". Laskar Jihad, however, refused to attend the peace talks and rejected the Accord as treason.

The peace lasted two years until a Christian hardline group raised their independence flag and marched through Ambon city in 2004. The parade sparked Christian-Muslim clashes, bombings and brought out snipers who took random potshots at police as well as Christians and Muslims causing 40 deaths. The police and military commanders blamed the violence on the Christian separatists. Mainstream Christians argued the separatists were barely 200 to 300 strong and not representative of their community. Although quiet for the last three years, Ambon remains a precarious faultline in the Indonesian religious divide and a possible candidate for another troublesome war of rebellion.

Jakarta Drowning

The Indonesian capital Jakarta has been inundated by rains and flooding that have so far killed at least 20 (the BBC is reporting 33 deaths) and made 350,000 people homeless. With rain forecast in Jakarta for the next two weeks, the situation is likely to get worse before it improves. A health ministry official said 20 people in Jakarta and suburbs have died as of Sunday afternoon, mostly either by drowning or electrocution. Homes, schools and hospitals have been flooded out paralysing transport networks and forcing authorities to cut off electricity and water supplies.

The rain started on Friday and has since been incessant on Jakarta and nearby hills. Government agencies are struggling to deal with the scale of the homeless. Some are staying with family and friends on higher ground and others are sheltering in mosques and government buildings. Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso has declared the “highest alert” after heavy rains in the upper areas around the city of Bogor (60km south) caused more rivers to burst their banks, sending three meter deep torrents of muddy water into residential and commercial areas of the city.

Flooding in Jakarta is not unusual, especially during the wet season of October to February. Forty percent of Jakarta, or 24,000 square meters, is on low land, and 78 areas are prone to flooding due to poor drainage. This time around, the floods have inundated not only the slums but also many middle-class residential complexes. The worst-hit areas are still submerged in three metres of water and in East Jakarta, water levels were recorded at six metres. In South Jakarta, flood victims tried to open the Manggarai floodgate to drain the water but city authorise refused. If the gate was opened half of Jakarta, including exclusive Central Jakarta, where ex-president Suharto lives, would be severely affected.

The state-run Antara news agency reported the flood water had reached close to the presidential palace and business centres in downtown Jakarta. Sutiyoso blamed massive development of luxurious villas and residential complexes in Bogor and Puncak, accusing the local government administration of sacrificing water-catchment areas for economic reasons. "The floods in Jakarta are partly due to environmental damage in Bogor," Governor Sutiyoso said. "The Puncak area is a water catchment but there are now many villas there, causing the downpour to run straight into the river." Antara is now reporting that Indonesian President Yudhoyono has instructed Sutiyoso to open the Manggarai sluice claiming there were no worries about floods reaching the State Palace. "For the sake of the people, the Jakarta governor is expected to open the sluice no matter if floods inundate the Palace," said Yudhoyono through a spokesman.

Water is not a new problem in Jakarta. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) arrived in Java in the 16th century. They built a walled city they called Batavia, near Jakarta Bay. It was to serve as the VOC capital for the next three centuries. The Dutch altered the cultural make-up of the city by bringing in non-Javanese slaves from present day Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Japan, supplemented by migrants from Europe, Arabia, India, and China. The Dutch built up their city with a series of canals and railways.

The current piped system of drinking water is ineffective being swamped by the continual growth of the city. 80% of Jakartans supplement their supply with underground water which has become steadily depleted. In low-lying North Jakarta, groundwater depletion has caused serious land subsidence, making the area more vulnerable to flooding. It also allows saltwater from the Java Sea to contaminate the coastal aquifers.

More than 2,000 millimeters of rain falls on Jakarta every year and there is rarely a year without floods. Jakarta's canals and rivers are now the major focus of the government's attention to control escalating environmental pollution levels. The Dutch made sure Batavia had a comprehensive and engineered network of rivers, drains and canals. But their canal system never fully managed to cope with the drainage problems and by 1846, almost a century before Indonesian independence, they were resorting to doing what they still do today - sorting out the problems only when floods occurred.

Old Batavia was built on marshland and much of the capital remains below sea level with weak drainage and major tides resulting in the outflow of rainwater slowing down. But environmentalists blamed the flooding on modern causes: years of bad city planning, which has led to building-work on green-field sites. This is the worst flooding in Jakarta since 1996 when at least 30 people were killed. The wet weather has also caused extensive flooding damage in the Borneo province of West Kalimantan, as well as large parts of East Java, including Indonesia’s second city, Surabaya.

The mystery of flight 574

New Year’s Day 2007. Adam Air flight 574 (KI-574) took off on what should have been a routine internal flight from Indonesian’s second largest city, Surabaya. The plane was destined for Manado, some two hours away on the northern tip of Sulawesi island. It never made it. About an hour into the flight, the plane disappeared from radar near the western Sulawesi city of Polewali. 102 people were on board, all presumed dead. The aircraft is still missing, despite extraordinary early reports the wreckage had been found and some aboard had survived. A seven day search has so far found no debris. Now KI-574 is turning into one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

The aircraft was a Boeing 737-400. The 737 is the world’s most popular jet aircraft. It is so widely used that at any given time, there are over 1,250 airborne worldwide. Somewhere in the world one takes off or lands every five seconds. The 737-400 has been in service since the mid 1980s. The Adam Air plane was built in 1990. It was last serviced in December 2005 and had 45,000 flying hours. Flight KI-574 had a crew of six and 96 passengers including 11 children. All were Indonesian nationals except a family of three Americans. The flight departed Surabaya in the East of Java at 12:55pm local time.

The weather was stormy. The Indonesian air traffic authority, PT Angkasa Pura I, gave a weather warnings to the pilot, Refri Widodo. Though KI-574 flew at over 9,000 metres it was still immersed in clouds. When approaching the island of Sulawesi, Widodo radioed in a worrying warning: "The plane has been hit by crosswinds from the starboard side." Winds of up to 140 kph buffeted the plane. The plane changed direction eastward to avoid the winds. Ten minutes later Widodo contacted air traffic control again to confirm his position on the radar. The controller confirmed it and the pilot responded “ok”.

It was the last word heard from the flight. Moments later the controller's screen went blank. Things weren't ok. The plane had disappeared off the radar with no distress call. KI-574 had carried enough fuel for four hours flight. After five hours of nothing, everyone feared the worst. An air traffic controller told Indonesian TV the plane hit "very bad" weather and may have run out of fuel because, if still airborne, it would be "over its limit”.

That night, the Indonesian air force announced they found the wreckage. They released a detailed statement that said the plane had crashed into a mountainous region of Sulawesi. An air force plane assigned to the search spotted the debris. First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto told a local radio “The plane is in ruins. We are sending teams to the location. The plane was found around 20 kilometres from Polewali (town) in the mountains. The weather is clear”. Witnesses were quoted as saying there were bodies everywhere. More remarkable still were further reports that 12 people had survived the impact.

Hopes rose among affected families that their loved ones might be among the 12 survivors. But their hopes were cruelly dashed. It took almost 24 hours for rescuers to get to the remote location, as they were hampered by bad weather and rough jungle terrain. When they got there, they saw nothing. Suyanto was forced to issuing an embarrassing retraction, "The location has not been found. We apologise that the news that we conveyed was not true”. Relatives of the missing were stunned. Toni Toliu, whose sister and her two children were aboard, expressed their dismay, “We are confused whom we should trust."

With no wreckage, the story of the dozen supposed survivors crashed too. The Government was forced to admit that that was an error too. A regional army commander said "News from the village head reporting 12 survivors was also not true, the village head said that he never made that report.” The new claims did little to quell passenger family anger at the astonishing turnabout. The search mission then switched to the seas of the coast of Sulawesi.

Indonesia has now deployed nearly 4,000 troops, four military planes and four helicopters in the hunt for the missing airliner. And yet after a week, they have uncovered no sign of any wreckage. The US oceanographic survey ship USNS Mary Sears has now joined the search operation. It is kitted out with sonar capability and the ability to detect metal under the sea. Meanwhile, relatives have confronted the Indonesian vice president to vent their anger. They are not getting many answers. Officials remain mystified as to what might have happened. Setyo Rahardjo, head of the transport safety commission, told Reuters “If it had exploded, where is the debris? These are the questions that need answers."

Questions too are turning to the safety record of the airline. One of about a dozen budget airlines in the world's fourth most populous nation, Adam Air is a privately owned low cost carrier which operates 19 Boeing 737s. Established in 2002, it serves dozens of domestic routes and also flies to Singapore. Its founder, businessman Agung Laksono, is also vice-chair of Indonesia’s biggest political party Golkar. He is also speaker of Indonesia's house of representatives. He has used his political muscle to stop investigations into the operation of the airline.

Last year an Adam Air Boeing 737-300 was forced to make an emergency landing at a small airport on the island of Sumbawa after it wandered 1,200km off course. Short on fuel and with its pilot not sure of his location for nearly four hours, it was forced to make an emergency landing on a 1,600 metre long runway, well short of the 2,200 metre specification set by the aircraft's manufacturer. The pilot claimed the plane's communications and navigation systems had completely failed but the airline deliberately repaired and moved the plane before it could be examined by the National Transport Safety Committee and there was no further investigation.

The parliamentary transportation commission has criticised Laksono for retaining his position as chairman of Adam Air's board of commissioners, but so far this conflict of interest has not been an issue. The strange story of KI-574 may yet change all that.