OCEANIA INDEX

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INDIA

Transcontinental Caravan
500 angry peasants on the road to the power centres of the world Activists from India and Europe are preparing for a month long tour of Europe. Around 500 Indian peasants feel that is high time that their problems are made known in wealthy Europe. Multinationals, and the liberalising measures of the World Trade Organisation WTO in particular, constitue a huge threat to their current income, way of life and natural surroundings.
MORE..
4th January 1999
China isn't Working
Tiananmen Square - ten years on As the ripple effects from the Asian crisis continues to spread first to Eastern Europe and now to South America more and more eyes are turning towards China. A decade of above average economic growth has clearly come to an end and Ten years after Tiananmen Square social tensions are mounting again. MORE

FULL CHINA INDEX..
translingvoj February 1999

Madeleine Albright

Selling death in SE Asia

The US secretary of State has arrived in Indonesia this week for talks with President Habibie. Is she wasting her time? Is she talking to the right man? Who is in control in Indonesia? Madeleine seems to have her head screwed on though as she has also arranged to talk to General Wiranto, commander of the armed forces in Indonesia and therefore the real head behind the power brokers. So what does Madeleine want to talk to him about?

Military aid. US foreign policy so often seems to be dictated by the debate between the so-called hawks and the so-called doves. The format doesn't change. Basically the hawks say 'let's give them military aid today' whilst the doves say 'let's give them military aid tomorrow'. Within such narrow confines a 'debate' takes place. That military aid will be sent is not in question.

And so it is with Indonesia. Madeleine is expected today to offer a resumption of US military aid to the country if the armed forces halt human rights abuses in East Timor and other parts of the archipelago. Meanwhile as she flew in soldiers were busy beating up students on the streets of Jukarta once again.

Noone seems to be asking why Indonesia should want military aid. Noone seems to want to point out that arms and soldiers kill people. As Al Gore has said if it's good for business it's good for America. And the buck (and with it the debate) stops there.

THAILAND
Madeleine is busy elsewhere too. Used F-16 jet fighters are on offer to Thailand in a new attempt to bring some money into the US arms industries coffers. These fighters are to replace the F-18s that Thailand ordered and then decided not to go ahead with a couple of years ago after, what shall we call it, some economic problems back home. Thailand (read the Thai people) lost a $75m deposit on that one and is still trying to work out where to get the money for these new 'toys for the boys'.

The US seems so keen to get the hardware into the area that it has agreed to equip them with Anram missiles which will now be seen for the first time in SE Asia. Why does the Thai régime want these weapons? We would like to know but both the doves and the hawks seem uninterested in such 'minor' details.

lingvoj March 5th 1999

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