---------------------------------------------------------- Visit Indonesia Daily News Online HomePage: http://www.indo-news.com/ -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 Free Email @KotakPos.com visit: http://my.kotakpos.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------- Australian Financial Review - Monday, June 19, 2000 Howard sends the wrong message with Cox lease Jakarta Observed, By Tim Dodd "It shows the insensitivity and the intellectual laziness of those officials who are in charge of this kind of thing." That's what Sabam Siagian, a former Indonesian Ambassador to Australia, thinks about the Howard Government's decision to lease its Cox Peninsula transmitter in the Northern Territory to Christian Vision, a British fundamentalist group which soon will be using the facility to spread its evangelical message to South-East Asia. And Sabam is an Indonesian who is least likely to be offended by the move. He is a Christian, not a Muslim like the overwhelming majority of Indonesians. He also has close links with Australia and, until early this year, was president of the Indonesian-Australian Business Council. It is not hard to see his point. Seen from Jakarta, it looks as if Prime Minister John Howard is pouring oil on to the fire which is raging just 1,500km north of Darwin in the Indonesian province of Maluku. The provincial capital, Ambon, is South-East Asia's Beirut, a city divided between warring Muslims and Christians. Since the fighting broke out in January last year at least 2,000 people in the Ambon area have been killed. Go another 500km north and you reach the island of Halmahera and its tiny neighbour Ternate which are riven by the same religious strife. Here, about 4,000 people were killed in fierce fighting between Muslims and Christians this past December and January. Christians drove Muslims out of the areas which they dominated and Muslims expelled Christians from areas in which they were the majority. The two sides are still in a tense stand-off, punctuated by the occasional attack on a village in which the inhabitants are slaughtered. Muslims in the area already believe Australia is backing their Christian foes. When this reporter visited last month, one Muslim refugee, forced from his home by Christians, claimed that his attackers shouted: "Australia is behind us, the US is behind us, Israel is behind us," as they destroyed his village. Says a local military commander, signs saying "Vive Australia" are daubed on walls in the Christian area. Australia is already accused by local Muslim leaders of supplying arms to Christians and conducting spy flights over the area and this, however far-fetched, is widely believed. What will happen when Christian Vision starts broadcasting into the area and the news reaches Muslim fighters that the Australian Government owns the transmitter? Until 1997, when the Howard Government cut off funding for the Cox Peninsula transmitter - which is closer to Maluku than Brisbane is to Melbourne - it was used by Radio Australia, whose highly respected programs broadcast reliable news and English lessons into South-East Asia. This won Australia many admirers. No doubt Christian Vision believes that its replacement broadcasting will save souls. That may or may not be so, but it is definitely likely to stir up trouble and there will be more souls whose destination the Almighty will have to decide - assuming, of course, that the issue is looked at from a Christian perspective. The Howard Government's ham-fisted decision to lease the transmitter does not bode well for its chances of successfully handling the rapidly evolving situation in eastern Indonesia, which could change the downturn in Australian-Indonesian relations into a permafrost. East Timor was the first problem. And with that still a long way from being resolved the next issue, West Papua, is looming rapidly. Last weekend a congress of tribal representatives and independence activists declared the Indonesian province of West Papua, formerly called Irian Jaya, to be independent. And despite Australia's view, stated strongly on numerous occasions, that it does not support the separation of West Papua from Indonesia, this message is not being heard in Jakarta. At the Indonesia-Australia Strategic Forum, which met in Jakarta this week, veteran Indonesian Professor Hasjim Djalal voiced the Indonesian view. "It is perceived that Australia has somehow not come to terms with the integration of Irian Jaya into Indonesia," he said. In discussions at the forum, an open meeting held between Indonesian and Australian strategic and defence specialists, it was clear that Indonesia's informed elite does not understand that, for Australia, an independent West Papua is a nightmare scenario. Australia still supplies Papua New Guinea with funds amounting to about 20 per cent of its budget and, 25 years after independence, there is no end in sight to the commitment. And neither is Papua New Guinea showing any signs of becoming a stable and self-reliant democracy. An independent West Papua, with far less physical and governmental infrastructure, would be infinitely worse. Nevertheless, Professor Hasjim believes that Australia changed its view on East Timor and could one day support the separation of West Papua, particularly if activists succeed in rousing public opinion. Why does informed Indonesian opinion refuse to believe Australia's stated position and apparently not understand the way these regional problems appear from Canberra? Another forum participant, Professor James Cotton, pointed out that in the 1950s Australia had actively supported continued Dutch rule in West Papua (then West Irian). This intervention, which is forgotten today in Australia, is not forgotten in Indonesia. Are John Howard and his Government up to the extremely delicate task of dealing with another Indonesian province demanding independence just to the north of Australia, a situation which is already causing new misunderstandings between Canberra and Jakarta? Judged by their handling of the Cox Peninsula transmitter, they are not. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 20 Jun 2000 jam 04:29:11 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
