Curbing Indonesia's army

Curbing Indonesia's army

The scale of the tsunami disaster and continuing health risks
in Indonesia's Aceh Province are almost beyond comprehension.

Unfortunately, Indonesia's politically powerful army is not
used to putting humanitarianism first. Imbued with a reflexively
nationalist ideology and obsessed with a counterinsurgency
campaign against armed Aceh separatist groups, army leaders
persuaded government officials to restrict foreign aid workers to
the province's two main cities.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general himself,
needs to make sure his generals understand that they are
accountable to him as the democratically elected leader and that
the human needs of Aceh's people must be Indonesia's most
compelling concern. Until that change is internalized, there can
be no dropping of America's limits on military ties with
Indonesia. Those limits were imposed because of past human rights
violations by the Indonesian armed forces.

In September, Yudhoyono became the first Indonesian leader to
be democratically elected by a direct popular vote, an event that
many hailed as the start of a new era of more responsive
government.

Those hopes now face a critical test. This is the moment for
Yudhoyono to take full charge and insist that the needs of Aceh's
people come first.
-- The New York Times

Start compensation process

It is anyone's guess how much it will cost to compensate Korean
victims of Japan's colonial rule in 1910-45 for their sufferings.

First of all, it is difficult to determine how many victims
are eligible for compensation. During negotiations with Japan,
which led to the 1965 signing of an agreement on normalizing
relations, Korea put the figure at 1,032,864. But estimates by
academicians go up to 4 million people.

The Korean government will have to foot the entire bill
because, as recently declassified documents show, it mistakenly
renounced individual claims to the Japanese government in return
for US$300 million in grants, $200 million in soft loans and
another $300 million in commercial loans.

To spend tens of trillions of won will put an enormous
financial strain on the Korean government, given its 2005 main
budget of 131 trillion won. But this should not keep it from
launching the process of making compensation payments soon.
-- The Korea Herald, Seoul

Tsunami disaster is a chance to create anew

The tsunami has opened the floodgates of charity worldwide.
Billions of dollars are being pledged in response to calls for
help in relief and rehabilitation work.

That's why we need to take the cue from the way cities and
countries have restructured successfully both their economy and
towns post-disaster, springing back to life with renewed vim and
vigor. The Great Fire of 1666 that raged for five days burned the
City of London to the ground.

Post-disaster, London made the transition from a haphazard,
unsafe city to a well-planned, brick and mortar model.

After the World Wars, the Marshall Plan enabled a bombed-out
Europe to make a fresh start. Countries went in for structured
makeovers in town and economic planning.

Rehabilitation implies restoring the status quo ante. We can
use this opportunity to do much better than that: We can create
anew.
-- The Times of India

Aid mission a test of integrated command

The government has sent about 1,000 Self-Defense Forces troops on
a mission to aid victims of the powerful earthquake that occurred
in waters off Sumatra, Indonesia, and the enormous ensuing
tsunami. Japan has never sent so many SDF members overseas
before. The recent dispatch shows that we have expanded the scope
of the SDF's role in the international community.

The latest SDF mission was the fifth of its kind to be carried
out under the Japan Disaster Relief Team Law. The mission should
be regarded as epochal in many respects.

First, the scale of dispatch has never been greater. Second,
the mission was part of an international cooperative effort made
by many countries. Third, the Ground, Maritime and Air Self-
Defense forces joined to form two groups that were sent on the
mission.

The government intends to revise the Self-Defense Forces Law
with the aim of expanding the list of SDF missions to include
international peacekeeping activities. If the SDF can
successfully carry out their mission in the stricken areas, the
public will be more apt to recognize the necessity of revising
the law, which could expedite achieving that goal.
-- The Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo

New term, old agenda for Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush will officially start his second term
as U.S. president after being sworn in at noon on Capitol Hill.
Fresh from a narrow election victory that he said had absolved
him of accountability for the Iraq war and given him new
political capital to spend on his conservative agenda, Bush will
now go before America and the world to outline his goals for his
upcoming term in his inauguration speech.

Given that his approval rating -- in the high 40s -- is the
lowest for any re-elected president starting a new term in more
than 50 years, that he is confronted with deep fiscal and trade
deficits, a weak job market, the Iraq mess and mistrust abroad,
many are hoping Bush Jr will use the speech to send a more
conciliatory tone to the world.

But that is unlikely to happen. Bush promised to "show purpose
without arrogance" in his first inaugural speech but found it
didn't play well with his core political supporters.

Yet in many ways Washington doesn't have much choice but to be
more yielding. It needs help from the international community to
restore peace in Iraq, for the sake of its economy it needs to
avoid creating too much friction with China over trade, and it
needs help from Asia in dealing with North Korea's nuclear
ambitions.

The international system through the United Nations similarly
tries to ensure the world doesn't fall victim to the law of the
jungle. Bush needs support to get things done. To continue in his
uncompromising and unilateral way, either at home or on the
global stage is simply too dangerous.
-- The Nation, Bangkok