Sad story from female Indonesian workers
Sad story from female Indonesian workers
Female Indonesian workers who have tried to improve their lot by making ends meet abroad have become sitting ducks for extortion done by irresponsible people.
Worse still, the workers have not only been victimized by extortionists during their stay abroad and their arrival back home but have also been beaten, jailed and even raped by their employers.
The number of successful Indonesian women working overseas however is not small. They have undoubtedly earned not only for themselves but also for recruitment agencies and the government.
It would thus be unwise to stop sending Indonesian contract workers to other countries permanently. The decision to stop exporting manpower should be temporary, until the best solution to problems these workers often face is found.
It is really ironic that the Indonesian workers the government has considered as a source of state income for years, are not protected by adequate legal documents. They only carry a letter from the Manpower Ministry when they leave the country.
We thus hope that the government, the House of Representatives, the Ministry of Manpower and Resettlement, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would formulate a bill on the sending and protection of workers abroad. We also hope that they would be able to forge an agreement with the workers' destination countries over the latter's welfare.
The government should likewise increase the workers' knowledge, to prevent them from being sexually abused by their employers.
-- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta
Attacks on U.S. troops
These last three weeks, we have seen an increase, rather that a decrease, of attacks on American troops: half a dozen a day these last thirty.
Undoubtedly Iraqi Kurdistan is calm and the predominantly Shiite areas are on the road to normalization. But it's around Baghdad and the heart of the capital itself that the United States is being challenged.
The United States is being challenged by a terrorist enemy devoid of all scruples, as the attack on the Red Cross has shown. An enemy that targets the Iraqi population -- most of the 43 who died since Monday were Iraqi -- as well as the American troops. An enemy whose simultaneity of attacks show an aptitude for coordination. And finally, a two-pronged enemy: supporters of Saddam Hussein, still on the run -- and Islamic militants that have entered Iraq in the hundreds since the American occupation. It's the latter group that recruit candidates to be suicide- bombers.
And this is not the only paradox of this battle waged in the name of the war against terrorism. With the motive of finding weapons of mass destruction that remain unfound, the war was launched against a regime guilty of crimes against humanity but one that offered no support base for Islamic radicalism. Six months later, Iraq is one of the major theaters of operation of terrorism. -- Le Monde, Paris
Israel's nuclear weapons
Although it has neither denied nor confirmed suspicions about its unlawful activities, Israel is widely believed to have 200 to 300 nuclear warheads. The Jewish state has not ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Likewise, it adamantly refuses to open its nuclear installations to international inspections. Nonetheless, no tough warning has been made to Israel to come clean on its nuclear program. The United States, which is spearheading a high-profile drive for global denuclearisation, has yet to pressure its protege to fall into line. Nor has the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has apparently done Washington's bidding over Tehran, been so firm with Israel.
Allowing Israel to keep the lid on its highly suspicious nuclear program and spurn bids to uncover it confirms the rife notion in the Middle East that the Jewish state is a law unto itself. The Arabs, who more than a year ago declared readiness to forge normal ties with Israel in return for the handover of occupied territories, must capitalize on the U.S.-led pressure on Tehran to demand that similar attention be accorded to the Jewish state's nuclear misbehavior. -- Egyptian Gazette, Cairo, Egypt
, on Iraq:
From the beginning it has been said that the United States must use a broad arsenal in which diplomatic, police, political and military efforts work together.
However, one problem from an American viewpoint is that the humility and willingness to cooperate that existed immediately after the terror attacks in New York and Washington was conspicuous by its absence during the diplomatic prelude to the Iraq war. Then the tone was significantly more self-confident than it is today.
It does not do any good, however, to dwell on all that has happened.
The outside world -- including the United States -- must act according to the reality which exists. And the reality is that an Iraq where terror is allowed to win becomes a bigger threat against international peace and security than Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime was.
-- Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, Sweden
Retirement of Mahathir YG INI AGAK KEPANJANGAN
It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that today (OCT 31)'s retirement of Mahathir Mohamad after 22 years as Malaysia's prime minister should be accompanied by controversy. In a recent speech, Dr Mahathir asserted that Jews "rule the world by proxy". After his remarks were widely condemned in the west as anti- semitic, he complained of double standards. It was acceptable, he said, to criticise Muslims but not Jews, which proved his point that the west was "under the thumb of the Jews". Dr Mahathir's claims may appeal, sadly, to many Muslims who are daily enraged by Israel's treatment of Palestinians or by a perceived anti- Islamic bias in Washington. But his thesis is as absurd as it is offensive (and depressingly familiar). It is not the proper business of statesmen to pander to such prejudices but, rather, to work to banish them. The fact that most of Dr Mahathir's speech was a critique of the Muslim world's own failings does not excuse encouragement of racial hatred.
Dr Mahathir's career has been punctuated by such controversies. The common thread was his desire to stand up for Malays, Malaysia, Muslims and developing countries in general; and to combat forces such as globalisation, the colonialist mentality and unequal, western-dictated financial and market structures. In this there is much that is laudable. Malaysia under Dr Mahathir became an economic success story. It is now among the world's top 20 trading nations; poverty levels have been dramatically reduced. The Mahathir era showed how a multi- faith country with a Muslim majority, a Malay- Chinese-Indian ethnic divide, and a history of communist insurgency and racial tension could build relatively harmonious social structures. Dr Mahathir also showed that it was possible for a poor country to progress without sacrificing its identity and cultural values. His sense of mission was strong; in many ways, he worked wonders.
Yet his achievements were often diminished by his methods and overshadowed by his robustly provocative views, views that were interpreted, sometimes too simply, as anti-western. There was usually an element of cool, domestic political calculation in what Dr Mahathir said. But his outspokenness also revealed the abiding resentments of a post-colonial parvenu. His authoritarianism, his reliance on party cronyism, his failure to curb corruption and the abuse of judicial and human rights, most infamously in the case of Anwar Ibrahim, have also tarnished his legacy. Ever a complex man, Dr. Mahathir's energy and vision, but not his prejudices, will be missed.
-- The Guardian, London
Facing the truth of Sept. 11
The commission investigating the government's failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is in danger of becoming a study in recalcitrance by the Bush administration. The independent commission's mandate is to supply a definitive account of the government's handling of the terrorist plot that killed almost 3,000 people. But the White House continues to fence with requests for classified documents crucial to the inquiry.
The commission chairman, former Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey, a Republican, is threatening to subpoena the administration for documents that officials should forthrightly turn over. Among the key questions is the nature of an intelligence report to President Bush a month before the attacks -- only sketchily confirmed thus far by the White House -- that al-Qaeda might try to hijack passenger airplanes.
The commission is up to the task of scrutinizing the failures of intelligence and other government agencies, and classified secrets can be adequately safeguarded. Congress should prepare to extend the commission's 18-month timetable beyond next May, the deadline.
How can an unstinting investigation of the truth of Sept. 11 not be of paramount concern to any official sworn to protect the public? The approaching presidential election makes the administration's evasions even more suspect. Failure to document and face the truth will only feed conspiracy theories and undermine the nation's chances of weathering future threats.
-- The New York Times
INI JUGA KEPANJANGAN, KALAU GAK KEPAKSA TUNDA DULU
Nuclear for food
There is hope for multilateral negotiations on North Korea's nuclear weapons program with Pyongyang reversing its rejection of Washington's offer of a written security guarantee. Pyongyang now says it is considering the offer, which would require it to dismantle its weapons program in a verifiable manner, in return for a promise that North Korea will not be attacked.
The offer itself is a shift from Washington's earlier stance that Pyongyang shut down its nuclear program before anything else can be put on the table. The part-acceptance, part-rejection by Pyongyang implies that it would like the talks to go on, but may hold out for better terms that would mark an improvement on the "agreed framework", the 1994 deal concluded with the Clinton administration. The secret of President Bush's newfound flexibility is that the military option is singularly unattractive here as Pyongyang is capable of a devastating response which would lay waste Seoul and perhaps, Tokyo.
It is quite possible that Pyongyang is willing to parley its nuclear weapons for a security guarantee, plus food, energy and other forms of aid it desperately needs to prop up a failing economy. Such a propensity ought to be encouraged if the non- proliferation regime is not to fall apart altogether -- Pyongyang's weapons could tempt Seoul and Tokyo to follow suit and there is no doubt that both have the necessary technical proficiency.
But even if the best possible deal within grasp works out -- Pyongyang accepts Washington's offer and everyone, including Pyongyang's neighbors, is happy -- some subtle challenges will be posed to world order as it exists today. What will prevent poor nations that have no food or exportable items, from following Pyongyang's example and throwing everything they have into the development of nuclear weapons, expecting the world, particularly America, to come up with the economic aid as recompense? It must be remembered that in the current international order where there is little either of aid or trading concessions available to poor nations unless they serve "strategic" needs. The message is not reassuring.
-- The Statesman, Calcutta
O Estado de S. Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Iraq:
Billboards set up in Iraq's capital claim "Baghdad is getting better." Reality doesn't confirm this, and the intensification of armed resistance in Iraq is being felt in Washington. State Secretary Colin Powell acknowledged he didn't expect the conflict to be "so intense and to last so long." Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administration chief in Iraq, concedes that the enemy "looks ever more organized." .
There is no easy way out of the Iraqi labyrinth. And if there is, it will require a "demilitarization" of U.S. foreign policy... something unimaginable with the Bush administration. Because of that, and for other reasons, the United States could end up with a new president in 2005.
---
Aftenposten, Oslo, Norway, on the closure of Zimbabwe's only independent newspaper:
As President Robert Mugabe and his power system cracks down of "the fourth estate," they are also making a mockery of the third estate, the judicial system.
The conflict is over The Daily News newspaper, which was closed six weeks ago, then hit the streets again just before the weekend after a court ruled the closing illegal. One edition was published ... then police raided the newspaper offices again, arresting journalists and staff.
Formally, the dispute is over whether or not The Daily News has a (government-required) license to publish. But the whole license system is just an excuse from Mugabe's side to smother free and troublesome voices in society. ---
Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland, on Iraq:
A new dimension has entered the terror (in Iraq). The International Red Cross is normally accepted as a neutral organ which helps anyone in need. The strike against its headquarters, which must be totally condemned, proved that the aim of the perpetrators of the destruction is to create the greatest possible havoc.
One of the targets of the rocket attack on the Al-Rashid Hotel was also a chief architect of the war against Iraq, U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The American administration has continually given assurances that the security situation is getting better all the while and that the media are giving a wrong picture by exaggerating the difficulties. Wolfowitz experienced firsthand that the opponents of the occupation are able to strike the city's most guarded sites.
The bombs are certainly not the only concern of the occupation force. Opinion polls indicate that a growing number of Iraqis oppose the occupation. As time passes, it is becoming increasingly clear that a turn for the better won't happen without cooperation from local Iraqi leaders who enjoy the people's support. ----
The Sun, Baltimore, Maryland, on progress in Iraq:
Donald Rumsfeld, it turns out, was right. In his now famous memo, which came to light a week ago, he pointed out to his Defense Department aides that the war on terrorism wasn't going as well as it might be. This had not been the line of the Bush administration, which at the time was busily trying to sell the idea that conditions in Iraq were just getting better and better, despite what you might read in the papers or see on television.
A new wave of attacks began yesterday morning, and by the time they were through 34 people had been killed.
President Bush said yesterday that the attacks were a measure of the desperation of those opposed to the U.S. occupation of the country. That's probably true, in a sense, but you could argue that Sept. 11 was a measure of the desperation of al-Qaida. What's more important is that these attacks are a measure of the expertise of those inflicting them.
It would seem that the best way to combat this sort of guerrilla warfare, which threatens to turn ordinary people against the occupiers, would not be to send out patrols kicking down doors, especially during Ramadan. Gathering sound intelligence -- doing good police work, in other words -- would seem like a much better option. ---
The Tribune Chronicle, Warren, Ohio, on Nathaniel Heatwole and airline security:
Nathaniel Heatwole certainly could have used better judgment in his effort to alert Transportation Security Administration officials to glaring holes in airline security. But he hardly deserves prison for smuggling box cutters and other possible weapons onto aircraft and telling the Transportation Security Administration via email that he'd done it.
TSA bureaucrats and federal prosecutors instead are treating the case as though Heatwole actually had sought to harm airline passengers.
Prosecutors should keep in mind that Heatwole is the air travel equivalent of the canary in a coal mine. By exposing security breaches, he may well have saved lives. That's hardly an offense that should yield the 10 years in prison threatened by embarrassed bureaucrats.
GetAP 1.00 -- OCT 31, 2003 01:15:50 ;AP; ANPA ..r.. NA-GEN--Editorial Roundup By The Associated Press= JP/
By The Associated Press= A selection of excerpts from editorials in newspapers worldwide:
--- Corriere della Sera, Milan, Italy, on the Iraq bombings:
George Bush has repeated what the military in Baghdad told him: that Islamic extremists and Saddam nostalgics are behind the attacks in Iraq. But the truth is, as officers in the field acknowledge, they don't know who their enemy is.
The Americans have not yet succeeded in responding to a fundamental question: are the cells operating independently or is there some kind of control?
The key, as always, is intelligence.
The guerrillas have good intelligence, since they are on home ground. The Americans had to start from scratch.
To respond to the threat the Pentagon could be tempted by the Israeli model: intelligence ... suppression, incursions, punishments for those who harbor rebels. You take the initiative, but you risk alienating further a population that is tired of death.
If you adopt a wait-and-see policy you inevitably favor those who attack you.
The best answer would be to guarantee calm, but this is impossible, because Saddam's partisans and the terrorists will do everything to avoid it.
---
This Day, Johannesburg, South Africa, on support for the Zimbabwean newspaper Daily News:
It is impossible not to feel a strong sense of deja vu as reports of the latest outrage filter out of Zimbabwe.
We know what it is like: newspapers shutting down, journalists detained for doing their jobs, the public deprived of information.
We know what it is like and we remember it.
On October 19 this year, reporters and editors stopped to recall the closure of The World and two other publications by the apartheid government in 1977.
South Africa then was a country under the jackboot of a heinous, undemocratic government -- a pariah in the national community.
There is little to differentiate the actions of the Zimbabwean government against the press from those of the apartheid government, as this weekend's events demonstrate.
At the weekend, Zimbabwean police occupied the Daily News building in Harare and held a former judge and the newspaper boss's niece hostage. They demanded that the newspaper's owner and board members hand themselves over or else they would keep the hostages.
These events occurred after The Daily News, the only independent daily in Zimbabwe, had been shut down on the flimsiest of pretexts.
The house of Zimbabwe is now well and truly fallen. Mugabe must curb his out-of-control state machinery or he will soon find himself under attack from his own frustrated people.
---
---
Der Bund, Bern, Switzerland, on Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky:
The billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been in a Moscow prison since Saturday, is no little innocent. In the '90s, as fantastic fortunes were being made overnight in Russia, Khodorkovsky was one of the most dangerous sharks in waters where only a few fish swam anyway.
But unlike other Russian tycoons, Khodorkovsky finally began to reform his business, Yukos, to meet Western standards and is, in Russian terms, pretty much an exemplary taxpayer. Before the campaign against Yukos and Khodorkovsky by the general prosecutor's office -- independent in name only -- and the domestic secret service, Yukos was one of the few showpiece firms in Russia.
The campaign against Yukos undoubtedly results from a direct order from Russian President Vladimir Putin. His declared goal is to build up Russia's economy, but of course that's only good as long as the Kremlin's monopoly on power is not affected. In this case, Putin is forcing real or imagined enemies to their knees -- even if, as in this case, that makes frightened investors flee and the Russian stock exchange lose billions in a few days.
The Khodorkovsky case is probably only at the start. But it should serve to put right those optimists who believe that Russia under Putin has fundamentally changed for the better. ---
The Jordan Times, Amman, Jordan, on international donations for reconstruction in Iraq:
The two-day donors' conference in Madrid for the reconstruction of Iraq ended with modest offers for assisting that war-torn country.
Some 70 countries attended the conference sponsored by the World Bank and the United Nations, but only a handful made sizable donations.
Many countries did not pledge more aid to Baghdad because of their continued reservations about the U.S.-led war on Iraq and the fact that the country still lacks security and stability.
Still, some US$35 billion were committed, to be spent over a number of years as either direct grants or loans.
Still, no matter how vehemently opposed many countries were to the war, there is now a new reality that requires a determined international effort to transform Iraq from a bedrock of instability and insecurity into the regional power that it deserves to be.
Iraq must return to being a major player in the Middle East and the Gulf regions. By all standards, it has the human and natural resources to become an economic powerhouse. The sooner it regains its rightful place among the nations of the area, the sooner it would be possible to recreate a regional environment for peace and progress.
Investing in Iraq now is investing in regional stability and development. --- The Times, London, on Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar:
Spaniards have often underestimated Jose Maria Aznar. The conservative prime minister seemed at first a dour contrast to his Socialist predecessor, neither ebullient nor charismatic and with the mournful air of a provincial insurance broker. Yet in his eight years in office Senor Aznar has proved a consummate politician, who has delivered steady economic growth, clean government, resolution in the face of foreign and domestic terrorism and a distinctive Spanish voice in European affairs. He took a big risk this year in supporting Washington over Iraq, despite overwhelming public hostility to military action. He leaves to his successor, Mariano Rajoy, a party of the Centre- Right in rude political health -- one of the few in Western Europe. His achievement has been to take the PP out of Franco's shadow and make it both respectable and electable. He has insisted that, in European affairs, Spain does not simply echo the dominant voices of France and Germany, but defines its own policies and alliances. This has sometimes made for strange bedfellows: Tony Blair's Britain would not seem like a natural ally, given the failure to resolve the Gibraltar dispute. But the two leaders have shared passing unpopularity over Iraq and have been leaders of the "New Europe" and a counterweight to France and Germany. --- MORE[
GetAP 1.00 -- OCT 31, 2003 01:15:37 ;AFP; ANPAi..u.. Asia-press-comment 1 HONG KONG, Oct 31 (AFP) -- The following is Friday's editorial fro JP/ASIA