OzIndo puts politics aside to help RI's impoverished<\/p>\n
Claire Harvey, Contributor, Jakarta<\/p>\n
In the heart of Australia's dusty outback, where rednecks are
\nas common as kangaroos, hundreds of hearts have been touched by
\nthe struggles of ordinary Indonesians.<\/p>\n
Sheep farmers, schoolchildren, shopkeepers and tradesmen in
\nthe remotest parts of Australia flocked to donate aid money to
\nIndonesia during 1999, even while official tensions were flaring
\nbetween Jakarta and Canberra over East Timorese independence.<\/p>\n
While the politicians traded insults, two remarkable
\nAustralian women - activist Fiona Collins and academic Jan
\nLingard - embarked on a 16,455-kilometer bicycle journey around
\nAustralia to raise A$65,000 (Rp 326 million) for impoverished
\nIndonesian families.<\/p>\n
\"We wanted to explain to ordinary people that Australia's
\nnearest neighbor was suffering a terrible economic crisis,\" said
\nCollins, founder of the OzIndo Project.<\/p>\n
\"In some of the towns we went to, people knew absolutely
\nnothing about Krismon (the monetary crisis) and some people even
\nthought Australia was at war with Indonesia over East Timor. But
\nwhen we explained how ordinary Indonesians were suffering, we
\nfound the most amazing compassion.\"<\/p>\n
This week Collins and Lingard are in Indonesia to receive the
\nofficial thanks of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
\nThe ministry has honored Collins and Lingard for their work with
\nan official award for promoting \"people-to-people harmony\".<\/p>\n
Makarim Wibisono, the ministry's director general for Asia-
\nPacific and Africa, presented Collins and Lingard with a special
\naward for promoting \"people-to-people harmony\" at a ceremony in
\nJakarta on Friday. This week they will travel to Yogyakarta and
\nBali at Deplu's invitation.<\/p>\n
Lingard, a retired lecturer in Indonesian and Malay studies
\nfrom the University of Sydney, is presently writing a book on her
\ndiscovery in rural Australia of 13 World War II graves of
\nIndonesian political prisoners.<\/p>\n
While researching contact between Australia and Indonesia
\nduring World War II, Lingard uncovered evidence that 1,200
\nIndonesians had been imprisoned at an Australian prisoner-of-war
\ncamp at Cowra, 450 kilometers southwest of Sydney.<\/p>\n
More than 500 of these prisoners were the founding fathers of
\nthe anti-colonial resistance movement, who had been arrested by
\nthe Dutch and exiled to the prison camp of Boven Digul in Irian
\nJaya.<\/p>\n
When Japan invaded the area in 1943, the Dutch colonists sent
\nthe prisoners and their families to Cowra to be imprisoned
\nalongside captured Japanese soldiers, under an agreement between
\nthe Netherlands and Australia.<\/p>\n
Thirteen of these prisoners died at Cowra, after which the
\nAustralian government allowed the remaining detainees partial
\nfreedom - they were sent to work in employment brigades for the
\nremainder of the war.<\/p>\n
Another 700 prisoners were Indonesian merchant seamen,
\narrested as illegal immigrants after they mounted an anti-
\ncolonial strike in the early years of the war.<\/p>\n
After Lingard discovered the graves in 1997, the Indonesian
\ngovernment paid for their restoration and a Muslim burial
\nceremony.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the saddest grave belonged to Soelistimah, the two-
\nyear-old daughter of one of the freedom fighters, who died in
\nCowra.<\/p>\n
Lingard is the author of a history of Indonesian-Australian
\nrelations in the 1940s and has translated several books by
\nIndonesian authors.<\/p>\n
She had lectured Collins at Sydney University and when the
\nyoung student returned from a year's studies in Yogyakarta with a
\npassion for the people of Indonesia, she was glad to help.<\/p>\n
\"I drove the caravan with our Indonesian colleague, Timur
\nNugroho, while Fiona did all the cycling,\" Lingard said.<\/p>\n
When the fundraisers arrived in the hard-luck township of
\nCamooweal, in the northern state of Queensland, they were hot,
\nsweaty and despondent.<\/p>\n
Only days earlier, bloody conflict had exploded in East Timor,
\nattracting great publicity across Australia. \"I was so down,\"
\nCollins said. \"We had already come 10,000 km and I thought we'd
\nnever be able to convince anyone in a place like this to be
\nsympathetic to Indonesia now. When we got to the camp ground the
\nfirst person who approached us was a typical Aussie bloke wearing
\nshorts and thongs and holding a beer in his hand. He said \"What's
\nthis all about love?\"<\/p>\n
\"Jan explained the whole story to him - about Krismon and
\nabout how ordinary Indonesian people were not responsible for
\nwhat was happening in East Timor,\" Collins said.<\/p>\n
\"He listened to it all and then he pulled a $50 note (Rp
\n250,000) out of his pocket. He said 'You use that to buy some
\ntucker for the poor buggers.' It was absolutely wonderful.\"<\/p>\n
The money was used to subsidize food packages for needy
\nfamilies in Java, to assist refugees from East Timor and Maluku
\nand to aid street children in East Java. The OzIndo project, with
\nCollins as director, will next month launch a website,ozindo.org,
\nfocusing on relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n
-- Claire Harvey is an Australian journalist working at The
\nJakarta Post as part of the Medialink fellowship, sponsored by
\nthe Australia-Indonesia Institute.<\/p>",
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