Asia News Digest
Rebel Leader Sweeps East Timor Presidential Election
Xanana Gusmao, former leader of the Fretelin movement, won 83% of the vote in the April 14 election in East Timor, just now becoming independent from Indonesia. Gusmao ran as an independent, not as a Fretelin candidate, although Fretelin candidates won a majority in the earlier Parialentary elections and will be the government party.
Gusmao distinguishes himself from the call coming from his former comrades for vengeance against Indonesia--a call coming especially from Jose Ramos Horta, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient, supporter of Portuguese colonialism, and darling of the foreign NGOs. As the final returns were coming in, Gusmao pledged he would seek good relations with Indonesia, and would prioritize repatriation of those Timorese who fled to West Timor after the August 1999 UN referendum, and other overseas Timorese. He also said he would support amnesty for pro-Indonesia militia leaders active after the 1999 vote, but only after they have stood trial and been sentenced.
Gusmao placed a call to Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda, who congratulated him on behalf of the Indonesian government. Gusmao conveyed his determination "to enhance close relations with Indonesia," and his highest respects to the Indonesian President.
China Develops Economy with Plan for High-Speed Railroad
China is planning to build a 2,000-kilometer high-speed railroad from Beijing to Guangzhou (Canton) in the far south, which would reduce the trip between the two cities from 23 to 10 hours.
This Beijing-Guangzhou line would cost at least 200 billion yuan ($24 billion). Such a "massive infrastructure project" would help maintain China's economic growth, according to the China Daily, which also reported that this project is included in China's long-term economic plans. It will be emphasized when the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is completed, in about five years.
Economist Caught in Another Destabilization of Indonesia
On April 11, The Economist of London published a slanderous attack on Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, and got a stern response. Just weeks after both Thailand and Malaysia had banned certain issues of The Economist for slanderous articles on their countries, the magazine tied together dozens of snide, lying, and degrading slanders against Indonesia, and especially the President.
Examples: Megawati "presides over the country from a lofty and impassive distance..., largely inactive..., the country is drifting towards disaster..., no clear direction..., isolated successes, none as impressive as it looks..., little initiative or ideology," and on and on. It alls Megawati's statesmanship in facilitating renewed ties between North and South Korea a "quixotic attempt." The British seem woried that Megawati is showing signs of the kind of nationalist leadership associated with her father, Sukarno, the country's first President. In fact, the article is titled "Trading on Her Father's Image."
In response, Mahendra Siregar, spokesman for the Coordinating Minister for the Economy in Indonesia, wrote to The Economist that this was pure "yellow journalism," without any attempt to contact the Indonesian government, peddling a "cheap smear," while "beating the dead horse of terrorism in Indonesia." He ended by calling the article "spurious--bordering on libelous."
U.S. Increases Troop Levels in Philippines Exercises
Some 2,003 U.S. troops are expected in Luzon, comprising the largest portion of the 2,700 U.S. troops scheduled to take part in the Balikatan 02-2 exercises in the Philippines' northernmost island, Luzon, April 22-May 6.
Balikatan 02-2, as of now, is not subject to the same "terms of reference" as the Balikatan 02-1 exercises in Mindanao, where 660 U.S. troops, led by 160 Green Berets, are conducting training exercises whose objective is to destroy the Abu Sayyaf guerrilla. Only after a fight all the way up to the Supreme Court were U.S. troops in exercise authorized to return fire in self-defense.
That authority does not extend to the Luzon exercise, where the character of the exercise could change rapidly, after the Communist Party's journal issued a call over the weekend for "lethal action" against U.S. troops in the Luzon exercises, amid indications that peace talks between Manila and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) are at the point of "imminent" collapse. The CPP's New People's Army is estimated at over 11,000 cadre with over 7,000 weapons, operating throughout the country, and with multiple links into a broader leftist swamp.
Anti-Terror Operations Escalate in Southeast Asia
As U.S. anti-terrorist rhetoric and pressure continues post-Sept. 11, Malaysia has arrested 14 more individuals under the Internal Security Act, including the wife of previously arrested Yazid Sufaat, who is accused of hosting meetings in Kuala Lumpur with two of the accused 9/11 pilots and with Zacarias Moussaoui, now on trial in Alexandria as the "20th hijacker." The 14 are accused of complicity with the Malaysian Militant Group and anti-state activity, but not of international terrorism.
In the Philippines, Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi has pleaded guilty to illegal explosives charges, related to having stashed 1,000 kg of explosives and related equipment. He has not formally admitted to the Manila bombings in December 2000 (to which the government claims he confessed), nor to international connections. Al-Ghozi is Indonesian, but has been in the Philippines for years, and is reputed to have trained the MILF in explosives.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government officially called on the Phillipines to release three Indonesians arrested on March 13, accused of meeting with associates of al-Ghozi, and of having bomb-making material in their suitcases. These are prominent business and political figures in Indonesia, including an official in the PAN, the Islamic Party of House speaker Amien Rais. The charges appear to be shaky, at best.
Finally, the Indonesian government attempted to present Abu Bakar Bashir with an order to finish serving an old sentence of nine years in prison, of which he served four years (1978-1982). Bashir said that "I deeply suspect that it is connected to pressure from other countries led by the U.S., who have made the arrest of certain figures, myself in particular, a prerequisite for the postponement of Indonesia's debt repayments. The U.S. has accused me of being a terrorist because I defend Osama bin Laden. I say he is not a terrorist, because the U.S. has never proven it."
Afghanistan Quagmire: Ex-King Zahir Shah a Solution, or a Problem?
On April 18, Afghanistan's 87-year old ex-king, Muhammad Zahir Shah, returned to Kabul after 29 years of self-imposed exile in Rome. Far from being a triumphant return, Zahir Shah came back under cover of night, changing his plane for security reasons at Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and guarded by at least 40 Italian carabinieri. Few were allowed to come to the airport to cheer him and his family. It is likely that his stay in Afghanistan, temporary or permanent, will be fraught with danger and characterized by slight contact with people.
Seven ministers of the Afghan interim government, including its chairman, Hamid Karzai, a distant cousin of the former king, accompanied Zahir Shah.
Zahir Shah says he has come back to die in Afghanistan. But Western alliance forces have big plans for him. They are keen to use him to play a role in stabilizing the political environment in Afghanistan. His cousin, the late Muhammad Daud Khan, ousted Zahir Shah in a palace coup in 1973. In 1978, Daud Khan, and almost all the members of his family, were killed inside the palace in a battle for power which came to be known as the Saur Revolution. The 1978 uprising paved the way for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and for the ensuing 24 years of protracted war (which continues even today)--a war that led to the death of almost 1.5 million Afghans.
Zahir Khan's immediate "task" is to convene the Loya Jirga (the grand council of elders) in June. The Loya Jirga will pick a provisional government that would be in force for 18 months. That period will be followed by general elections, as the plan goes. During these 18 months, the country will follow the 1964 Constitution.
In any case, Zahir Shah has many strikes against him. To begin with, he returned riding on the Western powers' backs, using Western security. During his 29 years of exile, Zahir Shah did not return to Afghanistan once, nor did he even condemn the Soviet invasion of his country.
More important, perhaps, his return comes at a very complex and difficult period. In November 2001, the Western alliance forces ousted the Pushtun-dominated Taliban regime from Kabul by using the minority Tajik-Uzbek-Hazara combination of forces, earlier known as the Northern Alliance. Although Hamid Karzai, a Pushtun, was appointed chairman of the interim government, the Cabinet was loaded with Panjshri Tajiks who are historically anti-Pushtun. Zahir Shah, who belongs to the Durrani sub-tribe in the Mohammadzai tribe, has come back to a country where the majority Pushtuns are out of the system, and many are considered terrorists. Those who brought him back take pride in defeating the Pushtun-dominated Taliban using minority ethnic groups.
Notwithstanding the internal contradictions, the West expects Zahir Shah to unify the nation. The Panjshri Tajiks do not like him. In fact, one of the Cabinet ministers who accompanied him back, told the press that as King, Zahir Shah was more interested in hunting and fishing than in attending to the nation's needs. It is almost a certainty that the Panjshri Tajiks who dominate the Karzai Administration will try their very best to prevent Pushtun forces from once more dominating Kabul. Pushtuns, defeated and angry, see in Zahir Shah an accomplice of the West and a friend of those who vanquished them. Does anyone envy Zahir Shah's position?
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