APSNet for 20060327
Austral Peace and Security Net
Austral Peace and Security Network Bi-Weekly Report, from the Nautilus Institute at RMIT, Melbourne, Australia.
Monday 27 March 2006
- Indonesia Recalls Ambassador to Australia
- Papua: The Dangers of Shutting Down Dialogue
- New ADI Boss May Defend Conflict
- Sharing the Shame of AWB
- Straits of Malacca Not a “War-Risk” Zone
- What Price Security?: Australia’s Terrorism Laws
Austral Policy Forum: 06/09A: A Firm Foundation: New Zealand Defence and Future Funding
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Indonesia Recalls Ambassador to Australia
Shawn Donnan and Sundeep Tucker, Financial Times, 2006-03-24
Indonesia has recalled its ambassador to Australia in retaliation for Canberra granting asylum to 42 boat people
- Indonesia Deplores the Decision of the Australian DIMA to Grant Temporary Visas to 42 Indonesian Asylum Seekers from Papua Province
Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs, Press Release, 2006-3-23 - Visa Tension No Threat To Indonesian Ties, Says PM
Stephanie Peatling, SMH, 2006-03-07 - Nothing to Gain by Antagonising Jakarta: Canberra Is Right to Play Down the Mini-Crisis of Papuan Asylum Seekers
Harold Crouch, Australian, 2006-03- 27 - Losing Papua – Jakarta Post Editorial
Peace Movement Aotearoa Site, 2006-03-21 - Cry Freedom: Papua’s Plea To World
Mark Forbes, Age, 2006-03-25
Papua: The Dangers of Shutting Down Dialogue
Asia Briefing N47, International Crisis Group, 2006-03-23
There is serious risk the newly formed Papuan People’s Council (Majelis Rakyat Papua, MRP) will collapse; ending hopes that it could ease tensions between Papuans and the central government. Papuan leaders hoped the MRP – as a representative body of indigenous leaders – would protect Papuan culture and values in the face of large-scale migration from elsewhere in Indonesia and exploitation of Papua’s natural resources.
New ADI Boss May Defend Conflict
Geoffrey Barker, AFR*, 2006-03-25
Major conflict-of-interest issues could confront the deputy head of Defence Materiel Organisation, Air Vice-Marshal Norm Gray, with his emergence as a front-runner to become managing director of ADI Ltd, Australia’s largest defence contractor.
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Sharing the Shame of AWB
John Kerin, AFR*, 2006-03-25
John Howard, Mark Vaile and Alexander Downer turned a blind eye to no fewer than 26 warnings that passed through umpteen government departments and some 100 public servants about AWB’s flagrant breaches of UN sanctions in Iraq. AWB must bear responsibility for its deliberate deception, but the government must shoulder the blame for incompetent oversight.
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Straits of Malacca Not a “War-Risk” Zone
SIIA, 2006-03-24
Malaysia Deputy PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak has urged the international insurance agencies to drop the war-risk tag on the Straits of Malacca for greater trade interest. Since last year, the London Lloyd’s Market Association had declared the straits and a “war-risk zone” highly vulnerable to piracy, terrorism, war and other perils.
What Price Security?
George Williams, Age, 2006-03-25
Since March 2002, we have enacted 29 new terrorism laws, or a new law about every seven weeks. Public debate is often not based on a realistic assessment of the risk and an understanding of the limits of the law. The law, no matter how stringent, cannot guarantee our security. Moreover, as history shows, the more repressive or draconian the law, the more that some people will be likely to take extreme action. The law can thus also become part of the problem that we are seeking to mitigate.
Austral Policy Forum: 06/09A: A Firm Foundation: New Zealand Defence and Future Funding, Peter Cozens
Peter Cozens of the Centre for Strategic Studies at New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington argues that under the Lange-led Labour and Bolger-led National administrations “different political perceptions of the role of the New Zealand Defence Force – caused in part by the end of the Cold War, the fracturing of ANZUS, peacekeeping operations and an estranged defence relationship with the US – resulted in lower budgets and investment in defence operations and infrastructure.” But, contrary to the impressions of some outside New Zealand, the Labour-led administration under Helen Clark has committed some NZ$4.6 billion of extra Defence funding over a period of 10 year period, and “plans and political commitment are now in place to rebuild the New Zealand Defence Force to provide an ability to meet future policy objectives. The various newly introduced corporate management and planning tools provide a robust foundation on which successive administrations will be able to build and alter capabilities as changing circumstances dictate.”
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