Max Lane responds

Max Lane responds

When I saw a letter by Geoffrey Gold, a well-known advisor to
Australian business and mining interests, in The Jakarta Post on
Nov. 5 responding to my articles on Australia-Indonesia
relations, I was quite excited. However, I was disappointed that
none of the issues being raised were discussed. Instead, there
was a series of data, not always correct in detail but generally
flattering, about my own political and human rights activities.
Gold certainly seems to pay a lot of attention to the activities
of dissidents and human rights activists, in both Indonesia and
Australia. But then his firm is a consultant providing analysis
to business interests.

Does he oppose the cancellation of Indonesia's foreign debt?
Does he disagree that the West owes the exploited countries for
centuries of exploitation? Does he support the fire sale of
Indonesian productive assets to foreign companies? Does he
support the IMF policies ending price subsidies on basic goods
for the common people? Does he agree that Australia, in the IMF,
should stop supporting the lowering of import tariffs and the
ending of import regulations on rice and sugar, threatening
livelihoods in these sectors? Does he join the Australian
government in standing opposite almost all Indonesian human
rights groups which oppose the introduction of repressive
antiterror laws in Indonesia, mirroring the repressive laws in
Australia used to justify armed ASIO raids on peoples' homes
without any public accountability?

These are some of the real issues that relate to the
exploitative character of Australia's relations with Indonesia.

All Australian businesses that operated during the Soeharto-
Golkar dictatorship benefited from the absence of trade unions
and environmental laws. The real issue is to end the conditions
which operate against ordinary people: to build strong trade
unions, environmental laws and protective legislation.

Indonesians will need the maximum unity in facing the
predatory West today just as they needed unity from "Sabang to
Merauke" to fight the predatory colonialism of the Dutch. The
strongest form of unity will be that resulting from voluntary
agreement on both principle and form. Coercion and violence is
the enemy of unity. This is the lesson of Aceh and Papua. Unity
among the 250 million people of the Indonesian archipelago,
including in Aceh and West Papua, will be best achieved by
respecting everybody's rights to self-determination. Where does
Gold stand?

MAX LANE, Visiting Fellow, Centre for Asia Pacific, Social
Transformation, Studies (CAPSTRANS), University of Wollongong,
Australia