Post date: 19 Oct 2006
- by: Juwono S.
Democracy is fine for those whose basic human needs (food, shelter, clothing, access to electricity, clean water, education) have been met. But for a large number of Indonesian (39 million living on less than 2 dollars per day; 10 million openly unemployed; 15 million families having to receive direct cash transfers) democracy has little personal meaning. The biggest challenge for President Yudhoyono is to attack mass poverty, overcome inequities in development and combat corruption. Radical groups, be they be religious or secular based, pose a threat to Indonesia’s democracy.
But hope remains that within the next 3 years the threat of radical and violent extremism can be mitigated and that as democracy is underpinned by broad based social-economic development, Indonesia’s democracy can be salvaged and made sustainable. The following new analysis from a recent Reuters report sheds light on the socal-economic dimensions of Indonesia’s democracy.
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Post date: 10 Oct 2006
- by: Juwono S.
This photo taken from the book, Kilas Balik Revolusi: Kenangan, Pelaku dan Saksi, by Aboe Bakar Loebis. President Soekarno’s visit to India in 1950. Governor General C. Rajagopalachari greet President Soekarno and the First Lady, Fatmawati. Bottom-right photo, Prime Minister Nehru with both me and my sister.
Post date: 20 Sep 2006
- by: tacoen
With Netherlands Minister of Defence Henk Kamp on the name giving ceremony of the first two corvettes that the Indonesian government ordered with Royal Schelde Group. The two marine vessels named after two important heroes from Indonesian history: KRI Diponegoro and KRI Hasanuddin.
Photo: mindef.nl
Post date: 19 Sep 2006
- by: Juwono S.
Stanley Weiss is reknowed business consultant who travels widely in Asia. He is a proponent of Indonesian democracy and is fond of Bali. His message in this article is that a tolerant and pluralistic Indonesia is possible so long as political and economic empowerment reaches to the majority of the Muslim poor.
Click the Continue Reading button or you can also read the full article at the International Herald Tribune
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Post date: 02 Sep 2006
- by: Juwono S.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 11, 2006, came into force on August 12, following the confluence of two related events affecting the military balance in Lebanon. First, Israeli forces in Lebanon faced formidable resistance from Hezbollah militia which stymied efforts by Israeli troops to achieve outright and immediate military victory. For its part, the Hezbollah leadership realized that stalemating Israeli military might had its political costs in terms of political acceptance among other Lebanese religious and communal groups. The suffering of life and property of Lebanon by Israeli ground and air forces, which had been offset by admiration for Hezbollah from across the Lebanese communities, began to take its political toll.
Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert came in for fierce criticism for the handling of the military campaign launched July 12. The chief of the Israeli defence force was criticised for relying too much on air power. But the underlying reason for the less than commendable performance of the Israeli ground forces seem to be more sociological than military tactics: the bulk of the Israeli reservists who were called for duty came from a new generation of professionals in the management, service and information service sectors. Unlike previous generation of Israeli soldiers, who were more hardy and tribulation-tested men and women coming from the harsher farms and rural areas, the new generation soldiers had less training and field experience to face the guerrilla-cum-rocket technology type warfare adapted by Hezbollah.
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Post date: 07 Aug 2006
- by: Juwono S.
The crisis in the Lebanon is already a month old since Israeli forces entered south Lebanon in search of two of its soldiers abducted by Hizbullah, the Shite-based and Iran-backed militia, following an Israeli corporal who was initially taken as prisoner in late May.
A flurry of meetings in the capitals of the Middle East, Europe, the United Nations, North America and even Asia took place to find a “ceasefire”, “cessation of hostilities” and other diplomatic formulations that usually are banded around, each hoping against hope that “international concern” and “pressure of public opinion” will bring some degree of “stability” to what is essentially a tense, complex and difficult military situation on the ground.
In late July, the European Union floated the idea of a “multinational force” consisting of France, Italy, Norway and Turkey which would constitute “a robust force” to bring about some kind of military stand-off . Heads of states and of governments in Arab capitals differ in their approaches to seek a solution, depending on the respective Arab government’s strategic attitudes toward Israel, Lebanon and Iran. The UN in New York issued its predictable litany of diplomatic statements, underlining its helplessness in having credible leverage over any of the protagonists. The US Secretary of State rather awkwardly wanted “a ceasefire in days, not weeks” but found her words undercut by intensified shelling and missile attacks by both Israel and Hizbullah. Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Organization of Islamic Conference called on the UN Security Council to be more assertive in condemning Israeli aggression.
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