| 1. AFGHANISTAN AND THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM |
| It hasn't taken long for the usual critics to start arguing that because the US and its allies are still fighting in Afghanistan, the US is becoming "bogged down" in "another Vietnam" with the prospect of it facing in the long run a Soviet-type humiliation. However, as we have pointed out before, the Americans had two major objectives within Afghanistan - to remove the Taliban regime and to destroy or render ineffective al-Qa'ida bases and forces there. It never imagined that fully achieving those objectives would be a short term project and expected to be engaged for many months and perhaps years in pursuing them. President Bush called for patience from the beginning.
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| Outside of Afghanistan the war has two other major objectives. One, to track down and destroy or neutralise the al-Qa'ida networks of various kinds operating in countries around the world. The other, to directly or indirectly attack nations and regimes aiding al-Qa'ida and other terrorists. It was in regard to the latter that President Bush made reference to a so-called "Axis of Evil".
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| At this stage, it is difficult for us to say much more about the state of this conflict as commentators in our position can't know enough - which is as it should be. However, we should assume that Osama bin Laden is still alive and that al-Qa'ida remains a potent force, for over the past decade an estimated 50,000 recruits from 50 countries have passed through its training camps in Afghanistan alone. With the Iraqi authorities paying Palestinian families $US35,000 each if they provide a suicide bomber to the cause, it is not hard to imagine al-Qaida plotting to despatch dozens of such bombers into cities like New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Singapore and Sydney. And perhaps Riyadh and Cairo as well. Secondly, it can be said that whether or not President Bush ever launches, or needs to launch, and presumably some time down the track, a direct attack on Iraq, America's technological and other military capabilities are being significantly enhanced with every passing day. And most of these technological advances are designed to enable the US to fight increasingly precise, major warfare with minimal casualties.
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2. INDONESIA
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| The Indonesians are being widely criticised for not doing enough against terrorist groups within Indonesia. While we appreciate the Indonesian government's delicate political situation and that many things may be going on behind the scenes, we can see no reason why it cannot publicly close down Islamic boarding schools that praise Osama bin Laden and teach his kind of racist and intolerant, totalitarian theology. They should also seek to publicly close down any military training camps belonging to such radical Muslim organisations as the murderous Laskar Jihad and the regional network Jemaah Islamiah (JI). That would go some way towards putting JI's leader Abu Bakar Baasyir and Laskar Jihad's Jafar Umar Thalib out of business, if not behind bars where the US, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines apparently believe they should be. | |
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| Leaked Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) intelligence intercepts (The Age, Melbourne 14.03.02) have confirmed what Asia Pacific Report (APR13-18) said at the time about the origins of the militia violence in East Timor prior to the Independence vote in August 1999. That is, that it was organised by 'rogue' Armed Forces (TNI) generals and others associated with General Feisal Tanjung then Co-ordinating Minister for Politics and Security and Major General Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, a former Commander of the Jakarta Garrison - two of the so-called anti - Wiranto 'green' generals. Saying that Wiranto appears to have been a "fall guy", The Age's Hamish McDonald wrote: "Tanjung appears to have operated a chain of command parallel to that wielded by Wiranto, using officers with Koppasus and East Timor backgrounds, especially major generals Zacky Anwar Makarim and Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin." In other words, it was organised outside of the official TNI 'chain of command'. Our sources said at the time that among those used were a number of generals and civilians, including the local governor, Abilio Soares, who were associated with former Kostrad commander General Prabowo Subianto and who are now being tried in Jakarta for war crimes. | |
* The Post Referendum 'Scorched Earth' Retreat
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| Feisal Tanjung was involved not only with the militia violence before the referendum, but with the planning of the 'scorched earth' retreat policy to be put into effect in the event of a vote in favour of independence. | |
| In APR18, September 1999, we summed it up this way:
"Most of the Timor-based and other generals and officers involved in
this (militia violence and scorched earth policy), as well as civilians like Governor Abilio Soares, were associates or proteges of the disgraced general and Suharto son-in-law, Prabowo Subianto whose 'boys' have had the run of East Timor for many years. Others were associated with the radical Muslim general Feisal Tanjung, Habibie's Minister for Politics and Security, who, as commander of ABRI (Armed Forces) in 1998 encouraged Muslims to rise up and attack the largely Christian Chinese community during the Jakarta riots. It was Feisal's Special Assistant who wrote the famous document, leaked in March 1999, outlining the scorched earth policy including detailed planning for mass evacuations. All of these people have long constituted an anti-Wiranto force and many of them were involved in the May 1998 Jakarta riots in an attempt to discredit Wiranto (See previous issues of APR). For example, Major General Safrie Sjamsoeddin who was reportedly seen standing outside of Bishop Belo's house as it was burned down, was the Jakarta Garrison Commander in May 1998 when police and troops under his command killed students on university campuses."
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| By way of an aside, the above raises an interesting point concerning Australian Prime Minister John Howard's mid 1999 meeting and communications with the then Indonesian president Dr. Habibie. Just when did the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and DSD, intercepting Faisal's communications (see p.3), know of the existence of the Feisal document leaked to certain Jakarta circles in March 1999? | |
| Did Howard know of the 'scorched earth' plans before the referendum, or even before his meeting with Habibie, but nevertheless let it go on without protest? If so, this gives some credence to the crudely put claim of some Howard critics that East Timor 1999 was "the massacre John Howard had to have". On the other hand, if he didn't know, then we are looking at another major Australian systemic operational intelligence failure, or, worse still, a very disturbing politicisation of the intelligence community, especially when it is realised that many Timorese on the ground knew of meetings in East Timor to discuss the implementation of these plans as early as February 1999. | |
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| The appointment of Major General Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin as TNI Spokesman has rightly drawn widespread criticism and anger. Sjafrie was involved not only in the East Timor violence but more importantly, as far as the Indonesians are concerned, he is widely accused of being responsible for troops killing students at Trisakti University and elsewhere during the anti-Soeharto student demonstrations in May 1998. At that time he was Commander of the Jakarta Garrison. Whatever motivated the TNI Commander, Admiral Widodo, and President Megawati to appoint Sjafrie, it has not done nothing to help the image of the TNI. The same can be said for the appearance of Widodo and a number of generals at the first day of the war crimes trial where they said they were expressing solidarity with the accused generals. The TNI has for too long been an independent political force in the Indonesian polity and for thirty years had, in effect, its own political and electoral machine, Golkar. Despite its intervention against former president Abdurrahman Wahid, that situation is now gradually changing. The TNI has acknowledged this by formulating a new military doctrine which requires it to gradually withdraw from politics and disband its territorial function and forces. However, some leading officers have found this hard to take, if not humiliating, and their actions in appointing Sjafrie and attending the trial might be seen, perhaps, as ill judged efforts to pretend that the past never happened and that the future can be somehow be denied. There are some generals who believe that the TNI could again intervene before 2004 if Megawati fails to perform and the economy does not recover - providing an acceptable alternative is available. But it would be harder. | |
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| The Golkar chairman and Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR), Akbar Tandjung is one of many people currently on trial in Jakarta for corruption or human rights abuses. Akbar's trial is an event many political commentators doubted would ever happen because of the potential political consequences. While most people believe that Akbar is already finished as a presidential prospect, a guilty verdict might have serious consequences for Golkar and therefore the political balance. Some say it could mean the legal dissolution of the party. What in turn that might mean is hard to say. The party might simply change its name - perhaps to New Golkar. Or it might break up with parts of it drifting off to other parties like Megawati's PDI-P (which itself has changed its nature since 1999), the PPP or even the two PKB factions.
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| In the meantime, the many trials under way in Jakarta and the recent jailing of corrupt former bankers and bureaucrats, along with that of Tommy Suharto, are giving the impression at least that Megawati is serious in doing something about law and order and corruption in high places. This will help Indonesia's international image and if the judiciary does the right thing in the war crimes trial, the nation and the world might come to see that things are beginning to change is substantive ways. Indonesia might then be looking at significant political, economic and social change. | |
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| In recent weeks, peace has descended on Maluku following the second Malino peace conference in February. In early March, thousands of Muslims and Christians held a mass rally to promote the peace accord and afterwards paraded side by side through the streets of Ambon in celebration of the peace. There were reports of people embracing each other in the streets, old friends visiting each other again with no regard for ethnic or religious difference and so on. Despite a couple of serious incidents since then, one involving a bombing which killed seven people and injured fifty, the peace has generally held and there are good reasons to think that it will continue to do so. Following Suharto's overthrow, minor ethnic clashes in Maluku were exploited by local political bosses and external agents provocateurs aligned with pro-Suharto, pro-Prabowo elements and/or 'green' Muslim generals so as to create havoc and instability in the region in an effort to undermine the authority of the new national government. At one stage, hundreds of Laskar Jihad warriors, trained in camps on Java, were armed and transported by rogue Special Forces (Koppassus) officers into Maluku, there to kill Christians, some of whom, without doubt, were aligned with their own local Christian political thugs and separatist elements. Now, with the passage of time and the evolving political scene in Java, the intensity of the pro-Suharto and pro-'green' push has subsided and the local bosses on both sides have run out of energy and resources. That should continue. Much the same thing, incidentally, can be said about the old Prabowo/Abilio Soares/Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin network in East Timor. | |
| 3. PAPUA NEW GUINEA: The Bougainville Autonomy Bill |
| In late March, legislation to grant autonomy to Bougainville was passed unanimously in the PNG parliament. Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, is reported as having described this as "history-making". | |
| The legislation grants a generous autonomy to Bougainville with a vote on independence within 10-15 years. All of this, of course, is very welcome and in accordance with the policy long advocated by APSC, as APR readers well know. What they may not know, however, is that APSC principals wrote a paper recommending a generous autonomy for Bougainville with a vote on independence 10-15 years later for an Australian Liberal Party Prime Minister in the late nineteen sixties. At the time, this was dismissed by senior Liberal Party and Foreign Affairs Department figures as a "hairy idea". However, we suspect that it might have avoided thousands of deaths, perhaps saved the Panguna copper mine which was producing about half of PNG's national income and all that meant for the long term betterment of most Papua New Guineans, and have led to an improvement and deepening of Australian-PNG relations. At least, that's what was hoped at the time. And as we have said before, a similar approach should be taken by Indonesia in Papua and Aceh. | |
