FAITH IN INDONESIA

FAITH IN INDONESIA
The shape of the world a generation from now will be influenced far more by how we communicate the values of our society to others than by military or diplomatic superiority. William Fulbright, 1964
Showing posts with label Tony Abbott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony Abbott. Show all posts

Friday, April 12, 2024

BETTER FLY THAN SAIL

 AUSTRALIA’S BORDER FARCE                     




A small group of presumed asylum seekers was reportedly discovered on the Kimberley coast last Friday. If correct then the much-spruiked cooperation between Indonesian naval authorities and the Australian Border Force allegedly protecting our shores has become a farce.  

Ten or more men who stepped onto the sovereign sands of their dream nation are said to have been arrested by a hundred ABF operatives rushed north at the weekend to staunch the invasion.  The prisoners were apparently whisked to Nauru for processing before refugee lawyers could blow in their ears.  

If the unwelcome arrivals are Chinese nationals as believed they'll probably be sent back to their homeland.  Runaways from the Middle Kingdom making it to the Lucky Country are rare. Past risk-takers have come from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Myanmar after spending stateless years in Indonesia, a nation that doesn't settle refugees.

About 12,000 are in this situation mainly hanging around Jakarta and surviving on handouts from the UN High Commission for Refugees.

In Australia there are now over 100,000 asylum seekers according to one report, with “2,000 new arrivals every month.”  These people are coming by air arousing little interest.

This month’s 10 undetected arrivals causing a media meltdown  came by sea - their number 0.05 per cent of those who use planes. The boat people were reported to have been found with no boat in sight  on the seashore near the old Truscott airfield in WA - the site of another landing last year.  It was built in 1944 as a heavy bomber base to raid Japanese positions in the Indonesian archipelago.

The jump-off points, of the alleged asylum seekers are unknown though some of the little marine lay-bys on Roti (sometimes spelt Rote)  Island - around 500 km north of the Kimberley seem likely.

The ABF has been crowing of its intensified aerial searches of the Arafura Sea since arrivals restarted last November, yet has missed three come-and-go ferries across an open ocean.  

This gives the lie to its website boast: 'Australia watches every boat' suggesting it can turn them back.  It can't even see them.

The ABF also claims problems in maintaining its pledge. In a Senate estimates hearing last year, Force Commissioner Michael Outram spoke of pilot shortages, issues with maintenance schedules and having to use Defence facilities in another bid for more money.



The unsubstantiated notion that “the ABF is aware smugglers have recently switched to valuable boats that can travel up to 20 knots” has been floated with favoured media by the ABF to excuse its incompetence.  Even the ABC has nudged the theory and increased the undetected boats to four.

Any speedboat would be expensive, sizeable and a standout at every traditional port around the Indonesian archipelago; most look more like junkyards than safe harbours.  Fast craft would have to be registered so police would know of their presence.  So would the envious local fishers keen to dob-in outsiders.

The unproven theory suggests a costly well-organised operation run by international crime syndicates bypassing, or in league with, Indonesian authorities.  A sophisticated show rather than the ill-planned journeys of the past when boats have broken down, lost their way or run out of food and water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Formed nine years ago when Tony Abbott was PM by bonding Immigration and Customs under the super-ministry of Home Affairs, the ABF considers itself a smug secret service with a duty of keeping the Australian public blinkered.

The favourite rebuff for  inquiring journos - including your correspondent - is no comment about 'on-water matters' and 'ongoing operations.'  This silly policy meant Australian news outlets reported 10, 12 and 15 intruders jumping off the latest mystery boat. (Ten seems the right figure.)

State police investigating serious crimes are usually far more forthcoming with facts for the press because they rely on public support for information.

The reporter flick-away technique was first used in the Abbott / Morrison era. The policy remains in place under Anthony Albanese allowing the agency and its 6,000 operatives to escape independent media scrutiny.

The reasoning is that publicity will encourage people smugglers to sell passages as though the criminals rely on factual stories rather than hoaxes.  The reality is that the ABF’s failure to spot ferries is a far bigger magnet.

The ABF claims its officials have been working with Indonesian authorities to publish info and running community sessions warnings of the risks facing people smugglers and their cargoes.

Maritime dangers stressed include shipwrecks, drownings, hull leaks and engine breakdowns. Land hazards are prowling crocs, getting lost and perishing through thirst. Penalties for organisers include  time in prisons serving ample food and good health care, conditions far superior to those in Indonesian jails.

In touring the eastern islands closest to Australia, your correspondent has yet to encounter any fisher who says he (Indonesian women rarely work as crew) has attended such sessions known as sosialisasi.

That doesn't mean the info distribution hasn't happened, only that it's had little impact.

The boats haven’t been stopped and more than 60 aliens have made it undetected - probably with the help of Indonesian seafarers - over the past five months suggesting the risks get rewarded.

The Opposition has predictably blamed Albanese for the latest arrivals when the real culprit is the ABF’s inattention. Albanese has responded by saying border control principles established by the Abbott government remain in place.

They shouldn't. It's time the  Government rethought its inheritance and set up a department that can do the job - and treat Australians like adults who can be  told what's happening.  That’s part of being in  a democratic society.

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 First published in Michael West Media, 12 April 2024:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, June 01, 2020

MORE JAKARTA LESS GENEVA: OK, BUT WHEN?

 
                                    Sorry, no connections available

It’s become a ritual for every Australian leader for the past half-century.

Before the Governor-General the new PMs swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown, then another of office.  The third is delivered outside Yarralumla.  The wording varies but the message is the same:  I pledge to improve relations with the folk next door.

Tony Abbott said it best and was the fastest to forget:  ‘More Jakarta, less Geneva’.

There’s concrete behind the promise and that’s not a metaphor:  Having the biggest Embassy in the world is supposed to show Australia is serious about cementing ties. 

Though not friendships. The universal symbols of mutual affection and respect are open doors and heartfelt greetings.  Visitors get neither at the iron gates of Australia’s citadel in the heart of its giant neighbour.

The $415 million Embassy built in 2016 is a five-hectare fortress.  Missing is a moat.  In reality that’s the Arafura Sea separating the two countries by less than 350 kilometres. 

The Embassy is encircled by blast-resistant walls to deter terrorists like those who bombed an older building in 2004 killing nine and injuring 150.  All were Indonesians.

The safety of occupants and visitors is essential.  That principle also guides the design of prisons. The diplomats locked behind the ring of steel (some live in the 32 townhouses inside) advise Canberra on policies towards the world’s third-largest democracy. 

 To do this they tune into political commentary filtered through newspapers and TV newscasts from stations so partisan they make Fox News look balanced.  From their ergonomic offices staffers assess the moods and movements of citizens across an archipelago of 6,000 plus inhabited islands.

More than 100 of the 180 Australians from 14 departments who work at the Embassy and three consulates have fled along with Ambassador Gary Quinlan.  He’ll miss a fine residence which offsets the Fort Oz sterility.  In the arboreal suburb of Menteng, with former president Megawati Soekarnoputri as a neighbour, it’s splendidly furnished with an impressive display of Australian art and culture.

The spooks and bureaucrats now safe in Barton fill time with encrypted calls to the Big Durian.  No whiffs of the reputedly aphrodisiac fruit or preachers’ calls to prayers wafting over the walls to distract.  

Also missing are the odours of coffee and smoking sate, the cries of hawkers, the heat and floods, the crazy cacophony of Southeast Asia’s biggest city. Instead the days pass calling contacts to ask what’s happening, arrange Zooms and upload smartphone vision.

Contacts are not connections. Images on screens are not human interactions. Indonesians are social people in three dimensions – four if including spirituality.  They want to know us face-to-face and shake our hands. Their culture isn’t bookish, it’s oral.  

We ask: What’s your job? We go slowly, gleaning intimacies grain by grain.

They’re direct.  The political is personal.  Are you married?  How many kids?  How old are you?  Where do you live?  Where are your parents from? What’s your religion?  Favourite food – and how do you cook it? 

If the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade agreement comes into force on 5 July, business will claim a triumph of closeness.  

Nonsense. More of our cereals and meats might appear on the slabs of traditional markets, though few consumers will know the origins of their goodies.  But backstories featuring wheatbelt header drivers and station hands mustering on horseback would excite.

Don’t go, don’t know.  Though more than nine million Indonesians travelled overseas last year, only 160,000 made it Down Under.  That included around 20,000 students. The tourist industry alleges harsh visa rules, which don’t apply to Malaysians and Singaporeans, deter Indonesians.  

In the same period, 1.3 million Australians flew to the Hindu enclave of Bali, population 4.2 million.  Few ventured into the islands beyond where the other 266 million live, most of them Muslim, to learn more about this complex nation.  

Few in government know how to build mateship when differences are often extreme so here are some pointers.

Sir John Gorton, PM between 1968 and 71, is largely forgotten in Australia and totally so in Indonesia.  Though not his American wife Bettina who spoke Indonesian and Javanese, collected batik and lectured journos on Indonesian culture.

A 1983 obituary read: ‘She won great success as a result of her deep interest in the cultural life of the region, her warm, open approach to the people she met, and the effectiveness of the speeches she made in the Indonesian language.’

The 1980s TV soapie Return to Eden brought another bonding moment.  Rebecca Gilling, the star of the Australian mini-series shown in Indonesia, was mobbed when she visited Jakarta. One reporter wrote she was more popular in Indonesia than her homeland.

Since second president Soeharto was dethroned in 1998 things have been kicked downhill by riots in Jakarta, killings in East Timor, spyings and executions in Java and brutalities in West Papua.

There was a brief pause in 2015 when a tie-less Malcolm Turnbull was taken by President Joko Widodo on one of his famous blusukan (walkabouts).  They went to the vast Tanah Abang market and were given a Gilling-style welcome.

An Australian VIP snapping selfies among the masses like a happy tourist? He should have brought a didgeridoo and wowed the crowd.  Playing was one of Bettina Gorton’s many talents. Fears of terrorists and Covid-19 curb such interactions; these need to be measured and not permanent as the paranoid urge.

The 1914 public assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria helped start World War I but didn’t stop other leaders and the led getting together as the years rolled on. 

The pandemic offers a chance to reset relationships between Indonesians and Australians.  That’s going to take an almighty bipartisan effort across all activities and not just the STDs – security, trade and defence.  

Which means holding PMs to their inauguration promises.

Covid-19 Update: The government has deployed 340,000 military to help police enforce social distancing, raising fears the Army is getting back into civilian affairs.  The nation has 25,216 confirmed cases and 1,520 deaths.

First published in Pearls and Irritations, 1 June 2020: https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-more-jakarta-less-geneva/

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

THE BULLETS THAT KILL CRIMINALS RICOCHET TO HURT STATES

Firing squad could wound Oz-RI relationships                    


The sometimes strained bonds between Indonesia and its southern neighbor have been relaxed since the election of new President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo.  He’s visited Australia, met Prime Minister Tony Abbott – who also attended the Presidential inauguration - and seems to have been well received.
The last major dispute followed the 2013 revelation that Australian spies had bugged the phones of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife Ani. Indonesia’s ambassador in Canberra was recalled and it took almost a year to get back to normal.
However all could turn turtle if Indonesia puts two Australian drug traffickers before a firing squad this year – as promised.
The men are little known in Indonesia, but big news in Australia. Andrew Chan, 30, and Myuran Sukumaran, 33, alleged ringleaders of the Bali Nine drug syndicate, were caught in 2005 and sentenced in 2006. Last year they appealed to former President Yudhoyono.  He stayed silent.
Last month (December) President Jokowi proclaimed his abhorrence of drug traffickers and determination not to interfere in court decisions, saying: “I guarantee that there will be no clemency for convicts who commit narcotics-related crimes.”
This week he kept his word as six criminals, five of them foreigners, met their maker. Reaction was swift with the Netherlands and Brazil recalling their ambassadors
Indonesians may be applauding a president with resolve, but the Republic is marching on the wrong side of history. More than half the world’s nations have abolished capital punishment, accepting the philosophy that it’s a cruel penalty, has no deterrent effect and the risks of wrong convictions are too great. 
 Mr Abbott has already told the Australian media that he hopes Chan and Sukumaran’s executions will not go ahead.
"We oppose the death penalty for Australians at home and abroad,” he said. “We obviously respect the legal systems of other countries but where there is an attempt to impose the death penalty on an Australian we make the strongest possible diplomatic representations.”
The PM’s comments spotlight the verbal acrobatics politicians perform on this emotional issue. Mr Abbott says he respects Indonesia’s legal system – but then condemns its application. To be consistent abolitionists should express the same dismay whatever the nationality of the condemned.
When Indonesia puts criminals before a dozen M16s, appeals to other nations to spare the lives of the Republic’s citizens abroad carry little weight. Indonesia has more than four million workers overseas, with 280 reportedly on death rows in countries like Saudi Arabia where the legal systems are not known for being open, fair and just. 
Although Mr Abbott has said the executions will not affect international relationships – meaning he’ll speak strongly but won’t carry a big stick -  that hasn’t been the case in the past
In 1986 Malaysia ignored Australian government appeals and dropped two Australian drug runners, Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers, through a prison trapdoor.  The then Australian PM Bob Hawke described the hangings as “barbaric”.  His comment inflamed Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad and set back relations between the two nations for several years.
In 2005 Singapore executed Australian student Van Tuong Nguyen, 25, for drug trafficking rejecting Australian government pleas to stay the noose.  Mr Abbott, who was then Health Minister, said Singapore’s determination was wrong and that the punishment "certainly did not fit the crime.” There were allegations of retaliatory business sanctions, but these were denied and unproven.

Even if Mr Abbott is right about no official impact, the legal procedures and manner of the men’s deaths will color public perceptions. Greg Craven, vice chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, is already predicting “a wave of revulsion” if the executions proceed.

Professor Craven heads the Mercy Campaign to try and stop the shootings.  As a lawyer he measures his words. However inflammatory comments by less cautious abolitionists could arouse the anger of Indonesian nationalists and further damage links.

The other problem is that news featuring Chan and Sukumaran will swamp the Australian media, drowning positive stories about the people next door.  This is already happening.  On Monday (19 Jan) all major news services ran heavily on the upcoming executions, some focusing on Sukumaran’s maturing artistic abilities and rehabilitation. Editorials have all condemned the death penalty.

Despite Professor Craven’s predictions there will be limited applause for President Jokowi’s determination from a few Australian hardline anti-drugs campaigners. This will get highlighted by sections of the Indonesian media to prove dissent Down Under.

The truth is that public support for capital punishment in Australia is low, though it rises after particularly savage crimes like the Bali bombings of 2002 that killed 202 – including 88 Australians. Recent polls show only around 23 per cent want the death penalty reinstated. The last judicial killing was in 1967.

So far Chan and Sukumaran, both alleged to be professional drug traders, have not aroused the same level of public sympathy shown towards blue-eyed beautician Schapelle Corby. The so-called ‘Ganja Queen’ was jailed in 2005 for 20 years for smuggling 4.2 kilos of marihuana into Bali.
Her story became a media staple, spawning books and documentaries. A determined support network was set up and backed even by those who doubted her innocence because the sentence was considered excessively harsh.
Corby, 37, was paroled last year by President Yudhoyono, a gesture that improved Indonesia’s standing in Australia but damaged the President’s credibility in his homeland.
Other international bonds will be tested when Indonesia’s firing squads get to work on British grandma Lindsay Sandiford, 58, convicted last year for carrying cocaine into Bali. Like Australia, the UK has scrapped the death penalty.
More recently New Zealander Antony de Malmanche, 53, was caught at Ngurah Rai allegedly with 1.7 kilos of methamphetamine. He too could be shot if convicted.  NZ’s last hangman hung up his rope in 1957.
What Mr Abbott calls “a strong and constructive relationship” with Indonesia is best built on positive projects like academic and journalistic exchange programs, aid and financial investments, skill sharing and security cooperation.
Capital punishment destroys more than lives.  It demeans the state, wounds international friendships and damages respect.  Life imprisonment does not.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 21 January 2015)