Ummm … it’s not rocket science. In ’65 elements of TNI and POLRI supported the PKI. Some were then killed by opposing elements of TNI and POLRI. Of course they don’t want to acknowledge their history of disunity, the military presents itself as the sole guarantor of last resort for NKRI. Nor will they admit the same institutions more recently split down Merah Putih/Hijau lines and fought one another in Ambon.
Not without some reason, they see foreign elements especially NGOs as a Trojan Horse threatening the unity of NKRI with exotic ideologies and latent Leftism. Individual and institutional culpability for ’65 is a secondary issue to NKRI harga mati.
Systemic corruption in the Police and Judiciary is routinely denied in the West, to preserve public confidence in those who govern them. Why, even in Australia the Public’s right to know may be traded away in the National Interest.
If and when Jakarta’s elites become more confident their territorial integrity isn’t being threatened, they may one day be more relaxed about the historical issues. Right now, fat chance. After losing E.Timor in ’99, and the manner in which it was lost, there are generational trust issues. So long as the same foreign Leftist types are trying to rehabilitate the PKI, discredit TNI+POLRI, and separate Papua from NKRI, well the Lemhanas types will continue to win this argument. It’s all in the Ce of Cak.
Any readers done the Lemhanas Kesatrian course and care to disagree?
The US of A has been a Sh*() stirrer for the last 20 or so years. This is the sign of an empire in decline. Desparately clinging onto power and dominant position – Read some history, and you will see this behavior over and over again.
The book – March of Folly – describe this really well.
Uncle Sam is the instigator in SCS. But in the end, it’s simply full of sounds and furies signifying nothing. US will not go to war directly with China. Too much to lose. They may instigate and support Japan to fight China, but themselves will not be in the front. In SEA they don’t have a heavyweight like Japan to use against China. Philippines? It is absurd even thinking about it. Eventually, I believe China will persuade the claimants to put sovereignty aside to share the resources in SCS. Who gets what and how much is, of course, up to negotiation.
How anyone can say with a straight face that the elections are perhaps the best run elections in Myanmar’s modern history is pretty astonishing considering the voter lists debacle, the Ma Ba Tha and USDP’s violation of election laws with impunity, and the most disturbing foretaste of the actual process the advance voting shambles. Is it really better run than the 1990 elections? We all know the results and the actual outcome.
“U Tin Aye is taking sides, because we filed the cases to the UEC but have seen no action so far,” Win Htein said. (Win Htein is an NLD central committee member.)
Countries are likely to be more or less forgiving of Myanmar’s election process… why? Would they simply pay lip service and mumble some complaint when, not if, the Burmese people get their dream shattered once more as in 1990 since stability meaning the incumbent power’s belated ‘endeavour’ to join the New World Order matters more?
A USDP MP — who declined to be identified — shrugged off the appearance that the party had a bleak future. “We know we are unpopular, but we’ll still win,” he insisted. They must be Millwall fans – “No one likes us, we don’t care.”
In the end, judgments by Myanmar people themselves will be more important than international views, although international attitudes will determine things like the levels and nature of external assistance. That I agree hit it on the nail. People today are very unlikely to take it lying down, so it won’t be a walkover.
Memories of being in Beijing on Easter Sunday for an APRU conference when a buzz went around foreign delegates that Christians had broken out of their designated place of worship and were arrested for worshipping on the streets. Access to that story lasted less than 30 mins through the Chinese version of a ka-la!
Sounds like a piece to instigate ASEAN, especially Indonesia, into helping to contain China. Why no FONOP when Vietnam and Philippines were doing reclamations in SCS? Is it not “might equals right” to send a war ship on FONOP & the US reconnaissance planes flying up & down the Chinese coasts? Who started the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute? Why did US not giving sovereignty of the islands outright to Japan but only the administration power? China knows they can’t win a major war with US but they’re confident to cause devastating damages, and in a limited war US is not a sure win. On the economic fronts US has lost badly on AIIB & their TPP isn’t taking off smoothly. This FONOP in SCS is meant to sabotage the Chinese “1 Belt 1 Road”. ASEAN is wise to stay out of this geopolitics between two giants. I think the Malaysian has a saying: when two elephants fight, the mouse deer dies in between.
The West tends to be fixated on elections, but it doesn’t really matter all that much whether the NLD win 40%, 50% or 60% of the vote. The military will want their nominee to be President, and this has to be fixed before the vote in the electoral college which is a pure formality. The two pre-selected Vice-Presidents are not serious contenders for the presidency; one has to safeguard the military’s interests and the other has to represent the non-Burman minorities. Even before the vote, it will be known who is to play what role.
But Suu Kyi may not agree to follow this charade. If she sticks out for an NLD presidential nominee, there will be a political crisis, and perhaps this is what she feels is needed if Myanmar is to progress further. There are various ways she could manufacture this, e.g. by getting herself nominated as a doomed presidential candidate. I doubt that she will want to be Speaker of the Lower House, who is chosen before the presidential election.
All in all, we are in for an interesting time. I wouldn’t like to predict how it will all go.
[…] inside the army to ascend through the ranks, I recommend reading Paul Chamber‘s lengthy, but in-depth essay on New Mandala. It also contains a handy list of all the current top army […]
Not counting the phantom votes from inflated voter lists, nor the ‘rejections’ from what seems like a pre-planned spoiling of the ballot papers required to stamp that will smudge instead of a straightforward tick.
All-round contempt for International Law is the explanation for this imperialist behaviour of the Chinese. The sea claims of the various nations should have been settled long ago by appeal to the International Court of Justice. Each of the small nations thought they could gain an advantage by trying to bully the other, but now the small-time imperialists have been trumped by a bigger one.
The guest contributors’ analysis is predictable. The money trail for “Security Studies” funding always leads to a weapons salesman. The money trails for their equivalents in Chinese and Russian universities lead to different weapon brands. Ultimately, the stark differences in analysis by the world’s “Security” academics reflect their differing brand loyalties.
The US is missing the point. China still has possession of several Spratley islands and will no doubt take more at some stage, as it has elsewhere in the South China Sea. It therefore continues to achieve its first objective which is to further its control of all the territory of the South China Sea.
Its second major objective is to destroy confidence in US power in Asia. This objective is furthered by the US Navy sailing impotently around without changing any facts on the ground. Overtime China will subtly but irrevocably alter the power balance. Its bewildered allies will get the message that they must settle with China on its terms and that it, not the US, is the power in Asia. Like the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British before them their day in the sun is heading for a sunset.
The US is already incapable of challenging China economically or politically, it has insufficient power to do so on its own and it will find little support amongst its allies for sanctions and other measures. Everyone is making their peace with China as its power grows. Alone the reigning hegemon, the only one really being challenged, is having difficulty accepting the writing on the wall. By 2030 China will account for 34% of world GDP. It will also dominate Asia which will be the economic and demographic centre of the world.
Get over it, let’s move on. If we don’t there will be a war as Alderic Au suggests in his “The Aztlan Protocol.” The outcome of that could, as he suggests, be a disaster for the United States.
I know you have brain, and humor, too. But no four arms. I am an average Joe bemused by all the sounds and furies in this forum and your post is like a breeze of fresh air.
The USA is the destroyer of order, whether terrestrial of marine. On the marine front it has long acted as an international outlaw and terrorist, mining harbors of peaceful nations across the globe and piratically stopping other nations’ civilian vessels on the high seas.
The authors are recommending gunboat diplomacy. It’s a stupid idea, dangerous, utterly unnecessary and hypocritical.
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A damning tale of megaprojects in Myanmar
“the China-backed United Wa State Army.”
Any evidence in support of that claim, Melody?
Shining a light on police complicity in 1965
Ummm … it’s not rocket science. In ’65 elements of TNI and POLRI supported the PKI. Some were then killed by opposing elements of TNI and POLRI. Of course they don’t want to acknowledge their history of disunity, the military presents itself as the sole guarantor of last resort for NKRI. Nor will they admit the same institutions more recently split down Merah Putih/Hijau lines and fought one another in Ambon.
Not without some reason, they see foreign elements especially NGOs as a Trojan Horse threatening the unity of NKRI with exotic ideologies and latent Leftism. Individual and institutional culpability for ’65 is a secondary issue to NKRI harga mati.
Systemic corruption in the Police and Judiciary is routinely denied in the West, to preserve public confidence in those who govern them. Why, even in Australia the Public’s right to know may be traded away in the National Interest.
If and when Jakarta’s elites become more confident their territorial integrity isn’t being threatened, they may one day be more relaxed about the historical issues. Right now, fat chance. After losing E.Timor in ’99, and the manner in which it was lost, there are generational trust issues. So long as the same foreign Leftist types are trying to rehabilitate the PKI, discredit TNI+POLRI, and separate Papua from NKRI, well the Lemhanas types will continue to win this argument. It’s all in the Ce of Cak.
Any readers done the Lemhanas Kesatrian course and care to disagree?
Sea folly and US-China relations
The US of A has been a Sh*() stirrer for the last 20 or so years. This is the sign of an empire in decline. Desparately clinging onto power and dominant position – Read some history, and you will see this behavior over and over again.
The book – March of Folly – describe this really well.
Sea folly and US-China relations
Uncle Sam is the instigator in SCS. But in the end, it’s simply full of sounds and furies signifying nothing. US will not go to war directly with China. Too much to lose. They may instigate and support Japan to fight China, but themselves will not be in the front. In SEA they don’t have a heavyweight like Japan to use against China. Philippines? It is absurd even thinking about it. Eventually, I believe China will persuade the claimants to put sovereignty aside to share the resources in SCS. Who gets what and how much is, of course, up to negotiation.
The world and the vote
How anyone can say with a straight face that the elections are perhaps the best run elections in Myanmar’s modern history is pretty astonishing considering the voter lists debacle, the Ma Ba Tha and USDP’s violation of election laws with impunity, and the most disturbing foretaste of the actual process the advance voting shambles. Is it really better run than the 1990 elections? We all know the results and the actual outcome.
“U Tin Aye is taking sides, because we filed the cases to the UEC but have seen no action so far,” Win Htein said. (Win Htein is an NLD central committee member.)
Countries are likely to be more or less forgiving of Myanmar’s election process… why? Would they simply pay lip service and mumble some complaint when, not if, the Burmese people get their dream shattered once more as in 1990 since stability meaning the incumbent power’s belated ‘endeavour’ to join the New World Order matters more?
A USDP MP — who declined to be identified — shrugged off the appearance that the party had a bleak future. “We know we are unpopular, but we’ll still win,” he insisted. They must be Millwall fans – “No one likes us, we don’t care.”
In the end, judgments by Myanmar people themselves will be more important than international views, although international attitudes will determine things like the levels and nature of external assistance. That I agree hit it on the nail. People today are very unlikely to take it lying down, so it won’t be a walkover.
Freedom and firewalls
Thanks Aj. Khemthong,
Memories of being in Beijing on Easter Sunday for an APRU conference when a buzz went around foreign delegates that Christians had broken out of their designated place of worship and were arrested for worshipping on the streets. Access to that story lasted less than 30 mins through the Chinese version of a ka-la!
Mark
‘Lesbianism’ and detention in Aceh
IN Islamic Malaysia, signs in public places prohibiting Kissing b/t man and women.
Yet in Islam greetings b/t men, hugs and kisses, are he norm.
Is that mean being Gay or Men Boy relationships are OK?
Challenging China and preserving order
Sounds like a piece to instigate ASEAN, especially Indonesia, into helping to contain China. Why no FONOP when Vietnam and Philippines were doing reclamations in SCS? Is it not “might equals right” to send a war ship on FONOP & the US reconnaissance planes flying up & down the Chinese coasts? Who started the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute? Why did US not giving sovereignty of the islands outright to Japan but only the administration power? China knows they can’t win a major war with US but they’re confident to cause devastating damages, and in a limited war US is not a sure win. On the economic fronts US has lost badly on AIIB & their TPP isn’t taking off smoothly. This FONOP in SCS is meant to sabotage the Chinese “1 Belt 1 Road”. ASEAN is wise to stay out of this geopolitics between two giants. I think the Malaysian has a saying: when two elephants fight, the mouse deer dies in between.
Censorship and the forbidden past
[…] : Fran├зois Vézier Source (Hamish McDonald/New Mandala) : Censorship and the Forbidden Past Photo : AK Rockefeller/Flickr […]
The world and the vote
The West tends to be fixated on elections, but it doesn’t really matter all that much whether the NLD win 40%, 50% or 60% of the vote. The military will want their nominee to be President, and this has to be fixed before the vote in the electoral college which is a pure formality. The two pre-selected Vice-Presidents are not serious contenders for the presidency; one has to safeguard the military’s interests and the other has to represent the non-Burman minorities. Even before the vote, it will be known who is to play what role.
But Suu Kyi may not agree to follow this charade. If she sticks out for an NLD presidential nominee, there will be a political crisis, and perhaps this is what she feels is needed if Myanmar is to progress further. There are various ways she could manufacture this, e.g. by getting herself nominated as a doomed presidential candidate. I doubt that she will want to be Speaker of the Lower House, who is chosen before the presidential election.
All in all, we are in for an interesting time. I wouldn’t like to predict how it will all go.
Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?
[…] “Who killed Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi?“, by Thilo Thielke, New Mandala, August 17, 2010 […]
The challenges for Thailand’s arch-royalist military
[…] inside the army to ascend through the ranks, I recommend reading Paul Chamber‘s lengthy, but in-depth essay on New Mandala. It also contains a handy list of all the current top army […]
With no vote we have no voice
They have vote, they have no voice</a, and it's called the army rank and file. No politicking for them, it's the preserve of the senior officers.
Not counting the phantom votes from inflated voter lists, nor the ‘rejections’ from what seems like a pre-planned spoiling of the ballot papers required to stamp that will smudge instead of a straightforward tick.
Challenging China and preserving order
All-round contempt for International Law is the explanation for this imperialist behaviour of the Chinese. The sea claims of the various nations should have been settled long ago by appeal to the International Court of Justice. Each of the small nations thought they could gain an advantage by trying to bully the other, but now the small-time imperialists have been trumped by a bigger one.
The guest contributors’ analysis is predictable. The money trail for “Security Studies” funding always leads to a weapons salesman. The money trails for their equivalents in Chinese and Russian universities lead to different weapon brands. Ultimately, the stark differences in analysis by the world’s “Security” academics reflect their differing brand loyalties.
Challenging China and preserving order
The US is missing the point. China still has possession of several Spratley islands and will no doubt take more at some stage, as it has elsewhere in the South China Sea. It therefore continues to achieve its first objective which is to further its control of all the territory of the South China Sea.
Its second major objective is to destroy confidence in US power in Asia. This objective is furthered by the US Navy sailing impotently around without changing any facts on the ground. Overtime China will subtly but irrevocably alter the power balance. Its bewildered allies will get the message that they must settle with China on its terms and that it, not the US, is the power in Asia. Like the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British before them their day in the sun is heading for a sunset.
The US is already incapable of challenging China economically or politically, it has insufficient power to do so on its own and it will find little support amongst its allies for sanctions and other measures. Everyone is making their peace with China as its power grows. Alone the reigning hegemon, the only one really being challenged, is having difficulty accepting the writing on the wall. By 2030 China will account for 34% of world GDP. It will also dominate Asia which will be the economic and demographic centre of the world.
Get over it, let’s move on. If we don’t there will be a war as Alderic Au suggests in his “The Aztlan Protocol.” The outcome of that could, as he suggests, be a disaster for the United States.
Cara Menghasilkan Uang Dengan Bermain Dominoqq
I know you have brain, and humor, too. But no four arms. I am an average Joe bemused by all the sounds and furies in this forum and your post is like a breeze of fresh air.
Challenging China and preserving order
Establishing order? The USA? Surely, we jest?
The USA is the destroyer of order, whether terrestrial of marine. On the marine front it has long acted as an international outlaw and terrorist, mining harbors of peaceful nations across the globe and piratically stopping other nations’ civilian vessels on the high seas.
The authors are recommending gunboat diplomacy. It’s a stupid idea, dangerous, utterly unnecessary and hypocritical.
Bumiputera graduate unemployment and Malaysia’s world class education system – a recipe for disaster
It is not the language, but the knowledge and the ability to think!
Please do not mistake the ability to read and write English with quality – thinking that simply makes you an anglophile – nothing else.
Bumiputera graduate unemployment and Malaysia’s world class education system – a recipe for disaster
He did not get an additional qualification.. confirmed
Cara Menghasilkan Uang Dengan Bermain Dominoqq
I think joe blow is being ironical and cynical. he he.
And no, Joe, neptunians do not have four arms and pig nose, but do have ego slightly smaller than brains – which bodes well for society..