Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Air Force
Killed in a recent helicopter crash while providing humanitarian relief to Indonesian civilians after the recent earthquake in the region.
As regular readers of TCP may know, I’ve taught at ADFA (Australian Defence Force Academy).
Midshipman Matthew Goodall was one of my students in 1999.
Greater Love hath no man….
From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :
Indonesia’s Vice-President Jusuf Kalla says foreign troops helping with aid relief efforts in Indonesia’s tsunami stricken Aceh province should leave by the end of March.Forces from Australia, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, China, Spain, Pakistan, Japan and Switzerland have scrambled to help with relief efforts in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, following the December 26 disaster.
“Three months are enough. The sooner [they leave] the better,” Mr Kalla said.
From The Australian :
Mr Kalla, who is in overall charge of Jakarta’s tsunami relief operation, said Aceh would need foreign medical workers and engineers instead of military assistance.”Foreign troops are no longer needed,” he said.
From The Australian :
Unidentified gunmen have killed an Indonesian soldier and badly injured another in the country’s tsunami-hit western city of Banda Aceh, and opened fire on a group of lightly armed police cadets, in the latest indication that Aceh province may be sliding back towards civil war.The gunmen, presumed to be Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels, struck about 8pm on Saturday, local time, less than 1km from the major concentration of international groups co-ordinating the delivery of aid to the region, including the offices of the UN and the International Organisation for Migration.
The two soldiers were rushed to Banda Aceh’s Teungku Fakinah hospital, where a South Australian medical team led by emergency doctor Hugh Grantham operated on a bullet wound to one man’s leg.
“In the case of the second soldier, who apparently suffered a gunshot injury to the head, there was nothing for us to do,” Dr Grantham said.
Several hours after the first attack, about 2.30am yesterday, gunmen apparently fired simultaneously from three directions on a police post assigned to guard the house of provincial deputy police commissioner Subekti, which was badly damaged in the tsunami two weeks ago.The post, only 100m from the UN and IOM compounds and largely manned by cadets serving their compulsory three-month military service, was pock-marked with bullet holes and littered with empty shell casings.
Only a handful of the police present had been carrying weapons but others, including cadets Agam and Ari, told how they had ducked for cover when the firing began.
“I was watching television,” Agam said, “and I dived for the floor. I was frightened.”
“Ari said he saw two gunmen there (to the east), two there (to the west) and one or two over there (directly across the road from him, towards the commissioner’s house) before the firing began.”
The assailants are believed to have fled the scene on foot, in the direction of the aid offices.
A GAM spokesman said his organisation could not have been responsible for the attacks because it was observing a ceasefire. However, an Indonesian military spokesman said fighting in south Aceh on Saturday had left two GAM members dead in the town of Batongan and three in Trumon, and that GAM weapons had been confiscated in east Aceh.
Independent sources confirmed the Banda Aceh attacks had occurred, and there have been reports of aid shipments travelling from the north Sumatran city of Medan being held up and looted by rebels.
The military spokesman said GAM was “meddling in the (post-tsunami) situation” by ambushing aid deliveries, now that a route from north Sumatra to the hard-hit west coast town of Meulaboh was open.
As an Australian, I have to say to any GAM supporter reading this, that you have screwed up by the numbers and are now on our S… list. It’s not too late to pull your heads in though. A reminder: Not all the SASR are in the Middle East.
Reports are conflicting, but it’s all quiet now.
From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :
There are reports of shooting in the major tsunami aid-base of Banda Aceh in the Indonesian province of Aceh.There have been conflicting accounts of the incident, which happened near the main United Nations aid office, but no casualties have been reported.
One policeman blamed separatist rebels for the gunfire, another said a disturbed government soldier fired the shots.
The area is now quiet.
[…]
“A police team that was guarding the house of the deputy police chief saw people carrying guns. The police warned these people, then fired a shot and an exchange of fire occurred,” Inspector Lazuardi, leading two truckloads of police deployed at the scene after the shooting, said.Three people the police were shooting at fled, he said, adding the firing lasted about 10 minutes.
Asked who he thought was responsible, Inspector Lazuardi said: “Who else? GAM (the rebel Free Aceh Movement) is the one who likes to disturb.”
GAM rebels have been fighting the Indonesian Government for nearly three decades. Both sides made conciliatory gestures immediately after the tsunami but since then have accused one another of initiating several clashes.
A policeman guarding the UN compound said the incident had nothing to do with GAM.
“It was a [security forces] member who was traumatised. The police and military have secured this area. It’s safe. We are here to protect. It was only an isolated incident,” he said.
The area was quiet later and the police trucks left.
From the Sydney Morning Herald :
Radical Islamic groups best known for smashing bars and violent support of the jailed cleric Abu Bakar Bashir have sent large contingents of their members to Aceh with funding provided by the Indonesian Government.At Banda Aceh’s airport, trucks with supplies to be ferried to disaster-struck areas by US Navy helicopters have been unloaded by members of Bashir’s group, the MMI, including one man proudly wearing an Osama bin Laden T-shirt.
Members of the FPI (Islamic Defenders Front), famous for its attacks on nightspots in Jakarta, are now living in Banda Aceh in tents provided by the army and the Ministry of Social Affairs.
The head of the FPI contingent, Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, said about 250 members had come to Aceh with tickets provided by the Government; 800 more on board an Indonesian warship would help clean up the devastated province.
“FPI is not only an organisation that destroys bars and discos, it has a humanitarian side as well that the media is not happy to expose,” Dr Almascaty said.
Early yesterday 50 of his troops wearing FPI shirts went through a series of military drills before heading off to the city to help collect corpses still not recovered from the millions of tonnes of rubble.
Dr Almascaty said his group had held discussions with the head of the army, General Ryamizard Ryacudu, the Defence Minister, Juwono Sudarsono and the Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, and had come to Aceh with the full backing of the Government.
He said his members were in Aceh to help, although the army in the past has often been accused of using Islamic groups to fight its battles, especially in divided communities like Aceh.
Dr Almascaty agreed that, as well as helping gather corpses and clean up mosques, the FPI had come to play another role.
He said he was determined to ensure the arrival of foreign soldiers and aid workers did not lead to a breakdown in the system of syariah, or Islamic law, which has been in nominal operation in Aceh for several years.
“Nominal” is the keyword here, rather than “actual”. It’s never actually been practiced by the majority.
“If anyone who comes here does not respect the syariah law, traditions and constitution, we must give them a warning and then we must attack,” he said.Dr Almascaty said his group was co-ordinating with MMI and with another hardline group banned in many countries, Hizbut Tharir, in a plan to curtail Western influence.
[…]
The head of the MMI contingent, Salman al Furizi, said his group of 50 young men from central Java had flown to Banda Aceh on a military aircraft. He was prepared to put aside his vehement opposition to the US because of the help it was providing.“We have to understand this is a disaster, so we are not talking about other problems,” he said.
Dr Almascaty also welcomed the Americans and other traditional enemies of his group. “At the moment they have come as an angel,” he said. “We don’t know about tomorrow.”
I can assure Dr Almascaty that in view of his words, in Australia the feeling is entirely mutual.
From The Australian :
Indonesia has promised Australia it will boost security in the war-torn province of Aceh amid fears aid workers at the centre of the world’s tsunami humanitarian mission may be caught in the crossfire of the separatist struggle.Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday there would be growing concerns for safety in the coming months as Australians helped rebuild the devastated western Sumatran coast.
Fuelling the volatility of the region, fundamental Islamic activists are also flooding into the region in a bid to guard against what they regard as dangerous Western influences.
[…]
Indonesian sources say the chief concerns for the safety of aid workers and unarmed defence personnel are Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatists looking for publicity, criminal gangs attached to GAM, and Islamic fundamentalists concerned about the influx of Westerners. One hardline Islamic group took aim yesterday at an Australian Catholic charity, Father Chris Riley’s Youth off the Streets, planning to set up an orphanage in tsunami-ravaged Aceh, warning it not to try to convert Muslim children.Chief of the radical Islamic Defenders Front, Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, warned the group to stick purely to humanitarian work in Aceh — the only Indonesian province to have fully implemented Muslim sharia law.
Mr Downer said while it was “political suicide” for Islamist militants to attack now, there would be concerns for Australians as the program dragged on. “The assessments of our agencies is that it is very unlikely that Islamists groups would commit acts of violence against people providing humanitarian aid simply because it would be an act which would be enormously unpopular in Indonesia, would set their cause back a very long way, even if it was some sort of an attack on foreigners,” he said.
Almost as unpopular as the attack on Bali. And more so than 9/11, the Jakarta Hyatt and Embassy bombings. Oh wait, they did those anyway…
Michel Brugiere, director of Medecins du Monde, or Doctors of the World, said that “given the context of the area where we are operating, we have very strict security measures in place”. He said: “Our teams are told that they should not fly in American army helicopters, since we’re concerned that they could be a particular target.”
From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :
The Australian Red Cross, Oxfam and World Vision have called for other countries to follow Australia’s lead, after Prime Minister John Howard pledged $1 billion over five years to rebuild tsunami-hit areas of Indonesia.
The usual suspects are criticising him anyway:
[Australian Democrats Leader]Senator Allison is also not impressed the announcement was made before today’s summit of world leaders in Jakarta.”This arrangement has been set up without consultation with the United Nations and to a greater extent with those aid agencies who say that they are the ones with the knowledge of what’s needed in various places,” she said.
The money is going directly to the Indonesian Government, of course. Australia isn’t into neo-colonialist paternalism, the Indonesian people should know better than outsiders what the priorities are.
Oh yes, that’s an additional Billion Australian dollars. Also from the ABC :
The package brings Australia’s aid commitment to Indonesia to $1.8 billion over five years.Mr Howard says the Indonesian President was extremely grateful for Australia’s assistance.
“He said, if I can best paraphrase it, that he had been overwhelmed by it and he would never forget it,” Mr Howard said.
$1.8 billion Australian dollars is $1.380 billion US, but 380 million of that is in concessional loans, so call it a Billion given and 380 Million loaned at a peppercorn interest. Plus the many millions of private donations from Australian individuals and firms.
Finally, also from the ABC :
Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out a visit to Indonesia’s Aceh province, saying it would only divert valuable resources from the relief effort.
[…]
“I frankly think that at the moment the resources of the military and so forth in Aceh are better employed looking after the people who’ve been hurt,” he said.”I don’t think I can add any value by going to Aceh at the moment.
“It would simply be to divert police and military and so forth away from their more urgent task.”
Colin Powell already did the neccessary walk-around, no need for a second opinion.
From The Australian :
Violence has flared in the capital of Indonesia’s troubled province of West Papua as security forces moved to break up a flag-raising ceremony by independence supporters, a Sydney-based human rights monitor said today.Five people were shot and wounded and at least 18 people arrested as 100 police dispersed the gathering at Trikora soccer field in Adepura, a suburb of Jayapura, just before 4.00pm (AEST) today, John Rumbiak, international spokesman for the Papuan human rights group Elsham, said.
Mr Rumbiak, who is now based in Sydney, said an Elsham human rights worker who witnessed the demonstration had been beaten as he tried to photograph the clash.
[…]
December 1 commemorates the first West Papuan national congress in 1961, organised by the then ruling Dutch as a preparation for independence.
[…]
Last month human rights advocates in Australia and Indonesia said a fresh military crackdown in the heavily-forested highlands district of Puncak Jaya had left eight people dead and forced thousands of locals tribespeople to flee their villages.Indonesia’s resource-rich easternmost province, formerly known as Irian Jaya, has been the site of sporadic violence since the early 1960s when Indonesia assumed control from the Dutch.
There were now more than 25,000 troops based in the province after a build-up over the last two years, Mr Rumbiak said.
Journalists are banned from entering the province.
Background:
The situation is complicated, because of the decades-long Indonesian policy of “re-settling” 1.2 Million ethnic Javanese from Indonesia in order to “assimilate” West Papua, which is, or was, almost entirely Melanesian. The Indonesians control the coastal strip - but the mountainous Jungles belong to the Melanesians, and many of them are in the Free Papua Movement.
The rest of the Island of New Guinea consists of Papua (formerly British New Guinea, under Australian control from 1906 till independence in 1975), and New Guinea (formerly German New Guinea, captured in 1914 and under Australian control from 1914 till independence in 1975). Together they are the nation of Papua New Guinea.
Dutch New Guinea, now West Papua, was briefly self-ruling from December 1, 1961 until December 18, 1961, when Indonesia invaded and evantually annexed it.
From Wikipedia :
The agreement, ratified in the UN on September 21 1962, stipulated that authority would transer to a United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) on October 1, and that UNTEA would hand the territory to Indonesia on May 1, 1963, until such time as a UN-conducted “Act of Free Choice” could determine the will of the people.Since 1962 consistent reports have surfaced of programs of suppression including killings, imprisonments, and aerial bombardments. The Indonesian government disbanded the New Guinea Council, and forbade the use of the new flag or the singing of the national anthem. There has been considerable resistance to Indonesian integration and occupation, both through civil disobedience (such as Morning Star flag raising ceremonies) and via the formation of the quasi-military Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM, or Free Papua Movement) in 1964.
[…]
In 1969 Indonesia conducted the widely criticized “Act of Free Choice”. Public voting was deemed to be unnecessary and the Indonesian military selected representatives, provided them with some training in the Indonesian language, and encouraged the representatives to provide a public vote for the assembled troops and two western observers. The observers left after witnessing the first two hundred votes for integration. This procedure was deemed to have been an “Act of Free Choice” in accordance with the United Nations requirements and Indonesia formally annexed the territory in August.
UNfinished business.