http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4278.shtml
Obama’s neocon
The curious case of Richard Holbrooke
By Joshua Frank
Jan 26, 2009
In the wee morning hours on Friday, January 23, a U.S. spy plane killed at least 15 in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border. It was Barack Obama’s first blood and the U.S.’s first violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty under the new administration. The attack was an early sign that the newly minted president may not be overhauling the War on Terror this week, or even next.
As the U.S. government fired upon alleged terrorists in the rugged outback of Pakistan, Obama was back in Washington appointing Richard Holbrooke as a special U.S. representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, like the remote control bombing that claimed human life, Obama’s vision for the region, in the embodiment of Holbrooke, may not be a drastic departure from the failed Bush doctrine. Or a departure at all.
“[Holbrooke] is one of the most talented diplomats of his generation,” Obama said during a January 22 press conference at the State Department. In his speech, Obama declared that both Afghanistan and Pakistan will be the “central front” in the War on Terror. “There, as in the Middle East, we must understand that we cannot deal with our problems in isolation,” he said.
In 1975, during Gerald Ford’s administration, Indonesia invaded East Timor and slaughtered 200,000 indigenous Timorese. The Indonesian invasion of East Timor set the stage for a long and bloody occupation that recently ended after an international peacekeeping force was introduced in 1999.
Transcripts of meetings among Indonesian dictator Mohamed Suharto, Gerald Ford, and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have shown conclusively that Kissinger and Ford authorized and encouraged Suhatro’s murderous actions. “We will understand and will not press you on the issue [of East Timor],” said President Ford in a meeting with Suharto and Kissinger in early December 1975, days before Suharto’s bloodbath. “We understand the problem and the intentions you have,” he added.
Henry Kissinger also stressed at the meeting that “the use of US-made arms could create problems,” but then added, “It depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self-defense or is a foreign operation.” Thus, Kissinger’s concern was not about whether US arms would be used offensively, but whether the act could be interpreted as illegal. Kissinger went on, “It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly.”
After Gerald Ford’s loss and Jimmy Carter’s ascendance into the White House in 1976, Indonesia requested additional arms to continue its brutal occupation, even though there was a supposed ban on arms trades to Suharto’s government. It was Carter’s appointee to the Department of State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, who authorized additional arms shipments to Indonesia during this supposed blockade. Many scholars have noted that this was the period when the Indonesian suppression of the Timorese reached genocidal levels.
During his testimony before Congress in February 1978, Professor Benedict Anderson cited a report that proved there was never a US arms ban, and that during the period of the alleged ban the US initiated new offers of military weaponry to the Indonesians:
“If we are curious as to why the Indonesians never felt the force of the U.S. government’s ‘anguish,’ the answer is quite simple. In flat contradiction to express statements by General Fish, Mr. Oakley and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Holbrooke, at least four separate offers of military equipment were made to the Indonesian government during the January-June 1976 ‘administrative suspension.’ This equipment consisted mainly of supplies and parts for OV-10 Broncos, Vietnam War era planes designed for counterinsurgency operations against adversaries without effective anti-aircraft weapons, and wholly useless for defending Indonesia from a foreign enemy. The policy of supplying the Indonesian regime with Broncos, as well as other counterinsurgency-related equipment has continued without substantial change from the Ford through the present Carter administrations.”
If we track Holbrooke’s recent statements, the disturbing symbiosis between him and figures like uberhawk Paul Wolfowitz is startling.
“In an unguarded moment just before the 2000 election, Richard Holbrooke opened a foreign policy speech with a fawning tribute to his host, Paul Wolfowitz, who was then the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington,” reported First of the Month following the terrorist attacks in 2001.
The article continued: “Holbrooke, a senior adviser to Al Gore, was acutely aware that either he or Wolfowitz would be playing important roles in the next administration. Looking perhaps to assure the world of the continuity of US foreign policy, he told his audience that Wolfowitz’s ‘recent activities illustrate something that’s very important about American foreign policy in an election year, and that is the degree to which there are still common themes between the parties.’ The example he chose to illustrate his point was East Timor, which was invaded and occupied in 1975 by Indonesia with US weapons -- a security policy backed and partly shaped by Holbrooke and Wolfowitz. ‘Paul and I,’ he said, ‘have been in frequent touch to make sure that we keep [East Timor] out of the presidential campaign, where it would do no good to American or Indonesian interests.”
In sum, Holbrooke has worked vigorously to keep his bloody campaign silent. The results of which appear to have paid off.
In chilling words, Holbrooke describes the motivations behind support of Indonesia’s genocidal actions: “The situation in East Timor is one of the number of very important concerns of the United States in Indonesia. Indonesia, with a population of 150 million people, is the fifth largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer -- which plays a moderate role within OPEC -- and occupies a strategic position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans . . . We highly value our cooperative relationship with Indonesia.”
Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the new book Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK Press in June 2008. Check out the new Red State Rebels site at www.RedStateRebels.org.
Showing posts with label Indonesia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indonesia. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Palm oil frenzy threatens to wipe out orangutans
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h9o2SE_tEvBAHt3Odkr4gM1_o9OAD95PN2UG0
Palm oil frenzy threatens to wipe out orangutans
By ROBIN MCDOWELL
1-18-9
TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia (AP) — Hoping to unravel the mysteries of human origin, anthropologist Louis Leakey sent three young women to Africa and Asia to study our closest relatives: It was chimpanzees for Jane Goodall, mountain gorillas for Dian Fossey and the elusive, solitary orangutans for Birute Mary Galdikas.
Nearly four decades later, 62-year-old Galdikas, the least famous of his "angels," is the only one still at it. And the red apes she studies in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations.
Galdikas worries many questions may never be answered. How long do orangutans live in the wild? How far do the males roam? And how many mates do they have in their lifetime?
"I try not to get depressed, I try not to get burned out," says the Canadian scientist, pulling a wide-rimmed jungle hat over her shoulder-length gray hair in Tanjung Puting National Park. She gently leans over to pick up a tiny orangutan, orphaned when his mother was caught raiding crops.
"But when you get up in the air you start gasping in horror; there's nothing but palm oil in an area that used to be plush rain forest. Elsewhere, there's burned-out land, which now extends even within the borders of the park."
The demand for palm oil is rising in the U.S. and Europe because it is touted as a "clean" alternative to fuel. Indonesia is the world's top producer of palm oil, and prices have jumped by almost 70 percent in the last year.
But palm oil plantations devastate the forest and create a monoculture on the land, in which orangutans cannot survive. Over the years, Galdikas has fought off loggers, poachers and miners, but nothing has posed as great a threat to her "babies" as palm oil.
There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Most live in small, scattered populations that cannot take the onslaught on the forests much longer.
Trees are being cut at a rate of 300 football fields every hour. And massive land-clearing fires have turned the country into one of the top emitters of carbon.
Tanjung Puting, which has 1,600 square miles, clings precariously to the southern tip of Borneo island. Its 6,000 orangutans — one of the two largest populations on the planet, together with the nearby Sebangau National Park — are less vulnerable to diseases and fires.
That has allowed them, to a degree, to live and evolve as they have for millions of years.
"I am not an alarmist," says Galdikas, speaking calmly but deliberately, her brow slightly furrowed. "But I would say, if nothing is done, orangutan populations outside of national parks have less than 10 years left."
Even Tanjung Puting is not safe, in part because of a border dispute between the central government, which argues in favor of a 1996 map, and provincial officials, who are pushing for a much smaller 1977 map. If local officials win, the park could be slashed by up to 25 percent.
Galdikas, of Lithuanian descent, was an anthropology student at the University of California in Los Angeles when she approached Leakey, a visiting lecturer, in 1969. She follows on the heels of Goodall, who today devotes virtually all of her time to advocacy for chimps, and Fossey, who was brutally murdered in her Rwandan hut in 1985.
Two and a half years later, she and her then husband, Rod Brindamour, arrived in Tanjung Puting and settled into a primitive thatch hut in the heart of one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, with millions of plant and animal species.
Twice featured on the cover of National Geographic Magazine, she wrote an autobiography, "Reflections of Eden," describing how she fell in love with the sound of cicadas, and marveled at the sudden shifts of light that in an instant transformed drab greens and browns into translucent shades of emerald.
Her first challenge was simply finding the well-camouflaged orangutans in 100-foot-high trees. But eventually she was able to track them, sometimes for several weeks at a time.
She discovered that female orangutans give birth when they are around 15 and then only once every eight or nine years, making them especially vulnerable to extinction. They also have one of the most intense maternal-offspring relationships of all mammals, remaining inseparable for the first seven or eight years.
While orangutans are at first very gregarious, as adults they live largely solitary lives, foraging for fruit or sleeping. Orangutan" means "man of the forest."
One of her main projects today is her rehabilitation center in a village outside Tanjung Puting, overflowing with more than 300 animals orphaned when their mothers were killed by palm oil plantation workers.
With forests disappearing, the red apes raid crops, grabbing freshly planted shoots from the fields.
"Many come in very badly wounded, suffering from malnutrition, psychological and emotional and even physical trauma," says Galdikas, as she watches members of her staff prepare six young orangutans for release one overcast Saturday afternoon.
It is a three-hour journey along bumpy roads to the release site. By the time they arrive, it is raining and the last gray light is feebly pushing its way through the deep canopy of trees.
After years of being cared for, fed and taught the ways of the woods, the young orangutans scramble nimbly to the tops of trees. Branches snap as they make their nests for the night.
"It is getting harder and harder to find good, safe forest in which to free them," says Galdikas, who today spends half her time in Indonesia and most of the rest teaching at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
Forestry Minister Malem Kaban says the government is committed to protecting Indonesia's dense, primary forests and that no permit should be granted within a half-mile of a national park. Even so, one palm oil company has started clearing trees within Tanjung Puting's northern perimeter, leaving a wasteland of churned-up peat and charred trunks. Four others are seeking concessions along its eastern edge.
Derom Bangun, executive chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, says while his 300 members have vowed to stay clear of national parks, others have been known to operate within areas that should be off-limits. Sometimes it is not their fault, he notes, pointing to the need for better coordination between central and local government on border issues.
Galdikas, a passionate field researcher, says one of her great regrets is that she does not share Goodall's skills in raising awareness and funds for the great apes. But she is happy Tanjung Puting has over the years grown into a popular tourist destination. She says there's no better advertisement for conservation than being in a rain forest.
Some visitors are even lucky enough to come face to face with an orangutan on a slippery jungle trail.
"As he passes you, you nod and he nods back to you and continues on his way," she says, adding that looking in the eyes of a great ape, it instantly becomes clear that there is no separation between humans and nature.
"If they go extinct, we will have one less kin to call our own in this world," says Galdikas, who is also president of the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation International. "And do we really want to be alone on this planet?"
On the Net:
Orangutan Foundation International:
http://www.orangutan.org
Palm oil frenzy threatens to wipe out orangutans
By ROBIN MCDOWELL
1-18-9
TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia (AP) — Hoping to unravel the mysteries of human origin, anthropologist Louis Leakey sent three young women to Africa and Asia to study our closest relatives: It was chimpanzees for Jane Goodall, mountain gorillas for Dian Fossey and the elusive, solitary orangutans for Birute Mary Galdikas.
Nearly four decades later, 62-year-old Galdikas, the least famous of his "angels," is the only one still at it. And the red apes she studies in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations.
Galdikas worries many questions may never be answered. How long do orangutans live in the wild? How far do the males roam? And how many mates do they have in their lifetime?
"I try not to get depressed, I try not to get burned out," says the Canadian scientist, pulling a wide-rimmed jungle hat over her shoulder-length gray hair in Tanjung Puting National Park. She gently leans over to pick up a tiny orangutan, orphaned when his mother was caught raiding crops.
"But when you get up in the air you start gasping in horror; there's nothing but palm oil in an area that used to be plush rain forest. Elsewhere, there's burned-out land, which now extends even within the borders of the park."
The demand for palm oil is rising in the U.S. and Europe because it is touted as a "clean" alternative to fuel. Indonesia is the world's top producer of palm oil, and prices have jumped by almost 70 percent in the last year.
But palm oil plantations devastate the forest and create a monoculture on the land, in which orangutans cannot survive. Over the years, Galdikas has fought off loggers, poachers and miners, but nothing has posed as great a threat to her "babies" as palm oil.
There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Most live in small, scattered populations that cannot take the onslaught on the forests much longer.
Trees are being cut at a rate of 300 football fields every hour. And massive land-clearing fires have turned the country into one of the top emitters of carbon.
Tanjung Puting, which has 1,600 square miles, clings precariously to the southern tip of Borneo island. Its 6,000 orangutans — one of the two largest populations on the planet, together with the nearby Sebangau National Park — are less vulnerable to diseases and fires.
That has allowed them, to a degree, to live and evolve as they have for millions of years.
"I am not an alarmist," says Galdikas, speaking calmly but deliberately, her brow slightly furrowed. "But I would say, if nothing is done, orangutan populations outside of national parks have less than 10 years left."
Even Tanjung Puting is not safe, in part because of a border dispute between the central government, which argues in favor of a 1996 map, and provincial officials, who are pushing for a much smaller 1977 map. If local officials win, the park could be slashed by up to 25 percent.
Galdikas, of Lithuanian descent, was an anthropology student at the University of California in Los Angeles when she approached Leakey, a visiting lecturer, in 1969. She follows on the heels of Goodall, who today devotes virtually all of her time to advocacy for chimps, and Fossey, who was brutally murdered in her Rwandan hut in 1985.
Two and a half years later, she and her then husband, Rod Brindamour, arrived in Tanjung Puting and settled into a primitive thatch hut in the heart of one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, with millions of plant and animal species.
Twice featured on the cover of National Geographic Magazine, she wrote an autobiography, "Reflections of Eden," describing how she fell in love with the sound of cicadas, and marveled at the sudden shifts of light that in an instant transformed drab greens and browns into translucent shades of emerald.
Her first challenge was simply finding the well-camouflaged orangutans in 100-foot-high trees. But eventually she was able to track them, sometimes for several weeks at a time.
She discovered that female orangutans give birth when they are around 15 and then only once every eight or nine years, making them especially vulnerable to extinction. They also have one of the most intense maternal-offspring relationships of all mammals, remaining inseparable for the first seven or eight years.
While orangutans are at first very gregarious, as adults they live largely solitary lives, foraging for fruit or sleeping. Orangutan" means "man of the forest."
One of her main projects today is her rehabilitation center in a village outside Tanjung Puting, overflowing with more than 300 animals orphaned when their mothers were killed by palm oil plantation workers.
With forests disappearing, the red apes raid crops, grabbing freshly planted shoots from the fields.
"Many come in very badly wounded, suffering from malnutrition, psychological and emotional and even physical trauma," says Galdikas, as she watches members of her staff prepare six young orangutans for release one overcast Saturday afternoon.
It is a three-hour journey along bumpy roads to the release site. By the time they arrive, it is raining and the last gray light is feebly pushing its way through the deep canopy of trees.
After years of being cared for, fed and taught the ways of the woods, the young orangutans scramble nimbly to the tops of trees. Branches snap as they make their nests for the night.
"It is getting harder and harder to find good, safe forest in which to free them," says Galdikas, who today spends half her time in Indonesia and most of the rest teaching at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
Forestry Minister Malem Kaban says the government is committed to protecting Indonesia's dense, primary forests and that no permit should be granted within a half-mile of a national park. Even so, one palm oil company has started clearing trees within Tanjung Puting's northern perimeter, leaving a wasteland of churned-up peat and charred trunks. Four others are seeking concessions along its eastern edge.
Derom Bangun, executive chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, says while his 300 members have vowed to stay clear of national parks, others have been known to operate within areas that should be off-limits. Sometimes it is not their fault, he notes, pointing to the need for better coordination between central and local government on border issues.
Galdikas, a passionate field researcher, says one of her great regrets is that she does not share Goodall's skills in raising awareness and funds for the great apes. But she is happy Tanjung Puting has over the years grown into a popular tourist destination. She says there's no better advertisement for conservation than being in a rain forest.
Some visitors are even lucky enough to come face to face with an orangutan on a slippery jungle trail.
"As he passes you, you nod and he nods back to you and continues on his way," she says, adding that looking in the eyes of a great ape, it instantly becomes clear that there is no separation between humans and nature.
"If they go extinct, we will have one less kin to call our own in this world," says Galdikas, who is also president of the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation International. "And do we really want to be alone on this planet?"
On the Net:
Orangutan Foundation International:
http://www.orangutan.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
