Charles Santiago, chairperson of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) and a member of parliament in Malaysia, criticises Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai governments for their stance on the current refugee issue.
Ironically, the secretary-general of his party, Lim Guan Eng (they are both from opposition Democratic Action Party), agrees (happens very rarely) with Prime Minister Najib Razak. How bizarre.
By refusing to be coherent and abide by their most basic postulates that Left is pushing to the Right lots of people who did not originally belong there… West has been manipulated by the Saudis, and Israel, for the last 50 years …
I haven’t met Mulya Lubis for a long time but, in the years I knew him, my impression was that all his friends called him ‘Mul’, just as I did. I never knew why nobody then called him ‘Todung’. It was none of my business.
Nor do I know now what the diminutive for ‘Todung’ is. Is it ‘Tod’? Do his friends now call him ‘Tod’? ‘Mul’ is definitely the diminutive for ‘Mulya’.
I don’t know much about Mandailing culture. Maybe a Mandailing reader can explain why Todung Mulya Lubis has come to be called ‘Todung’ sometimes as he has aged. If I had Mul’s email address, I would ask him directly.
I am not buying into the question of his relations with PERADI. Tim Lindsey is the authority on subjects like that.
It all looks to prove Pierre Marthinus’ point about a serious Australian lack of “cultural competence”. If an elite of Indonesia experts cannot get Todung’s name right – and Todung’s been representing their own oligarchs in so many ways for so long now – how can they be expected to penetrate matters of legal and political complexity within such a basic cultural context?
Charles Santiago, Malaysian MP for Klang, really put it best when he described ASEAN as
“… really nothing more than a group of powerful people who indulge in much backslapping and handshakes, sit at dinner tables pretending all is well and ignore raising crucial issues to ensure they themselves are not put in a tight spot.”
Lubis, Santosa & Maramis is his firm’s current name after a 2012 change from Lubis, Santosa & Maulana. A CV document for the firm’s partner Lely Santosa indicates that the name “Mulya Lubis & Partners” may have ended some time before 2003: Lely’s 2011 CV alludes only to the Lubis, Santosa & Maulana name from 2002. From the many Indonesian sources I have read, I have not once seen any alluding to just a “Mulya Lubis”, despite the several partisan or business-affiliated sites which avoid the disbarment issue and would similarly accommodate Todung’s other apparent preferences and projections.
The Australian Embassy in Jakarta, besides not heeding the fact of Todung’s official disbarment, has not updated the firm’s name despite listing it on a select page dated January 2013 (see: http://www.indonesia.embassy.gov.au/jakt/Lawyer.html).
Further, the Embassy makes a comment which may be without legal or professional foundation in defining “advocate” as fulfilling an accredited national-level function in courts, as if more generally-defined lawyers are restricted to functioning in courts at province-level only.
Such DFAT advice appears misleading. Statutes UU No 18/2003 BAB I, Pasal 1, 1. and the Indonesian Advocates Code of Ethics (KEAI) BAB I, Pasal 1, a. define an Indonesian “advocate” (advokat) unambiguously as any lawfully accredited Indonesian lawyer, in or out of court, with no distinction as to provincial or national levels.
Have you seen with your own eyes Bamar people “push” “Rohingya” out to sea ? Does one instance of disingenuousness justify all the rest ? Does Bangladesh’s failure to institute birth control justify Myanmar merely letting in anyone who wants come in ? And if Dhaka cares so much, why aren’t they willing to take back what is theirs, anyway ?
Does one instance of callousness towards those in danger justify another?
If so, yes, many groups have been persecuted in the past while third parties looked on and refused to help… so it’s OK for that to happen again to any group?
Perhaps hrk, you can ask Jake Lynch at Sydney University, an avowed Leftist and virulent defender of Islamic causes, or John Esposito at Georgetown University. You have been hibernating for a very long time. You have to be deaf, dumb and blind, not to see the causal relationship, which was rightly criticized by Liberals, (late) Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie. Islamism should NOT be a Leftist cause and before Edward Said, it was less so. I hardly think those defending Islamism, today, are clones of T.E. Lawrence. Get real…
I can safely say that the idea of an ASEAN Economic Community exists only as a fantasy in bureaucrats’ minds. It has no meaning whatsoever to the ordinary citizen. ASEAN itsef only functions as a talkshop where summits are meant for mutual backslapping and pageantry. Why else would Myanmar have signed up in the first place if it didn’t see ASEAN as a toothless tiger?
KW: “Nobody else calls Mr Lubis ‘Todung’.” It seems Ken Ward is entirely incorrect unless, of course, he regards all Indonesians as “nobodies”. If the latter, he should apologize, or the administrator should remove the comment accordingly.
Of course, other Bataks like PERADI’s Otto Hasibuan, Hasanuddin Nasution, Leonard P Simorangkir, Patuan Sinaga, Hotman Paris Hutapea, etc., probably indicate the surest confirmation that the man is known in brief as “Todung”. But non-Batak Indonesians too all reveal the same easy reference to him as “Todung”.
[Headline]: Ini Alasan PERADI Tolak Todung di Pansel MK – Todung mengaku hanya ingin membangun MK yang kuat.
[Excerpt]: ‘Ketua Umum DPN PERADI Otto Hasibuan mengatakan pihaknya menolak keberadaan Todung dan Refly karena keduanya pernah…’
‘”…yang ditangani oleh saudara Todung dan Refly Harun,” tutur Otto.’ http://www.hukumonline.com/berita/baca/lt548fff89bd739/ini-alasan-peradi-tolak-todung-di-pansel-mk
“Indonesia and Malaysia have ordered their naval forces to return any Rohingya boats to sea.”
It is a duty for Muslims to spread Islam by any means … That is why Muslim countries refuse to take their share of the Muslim migrants ! Read Marshall Sahlins “The segmentary lineage : An Organization of predatory expansion” (in American Anthropologist, 63, 1961, pp. 322-43) !
When President Jimmy Carter met Prime Minister John Malcolm Fraser over thirty years ago, he unintentionally showed his ignorance of Australia by calling his visitor ‘John’, rather than ‘Malcolm’, which was how he was known to the rest of the world.
Similarly, Mr Davies insists on calling Mulya Lubis ‘Todung’. Doesn’t he like the name ‘Mulya’? Nobody else calls Mr Lubis ‘Todung’.
Since when has, what you refer to as “Left” an islamic or islamist agenda?
It seems that too many persons, especially journalists and international NGO use the Rohingya refugee problem for their own ends. So far, those who do have knowledge and information about the situation are hardly ever referred to.
Malaysia pushed the Vietnamese “boat people” out to sea, after the fall of Saigon (though, later in the 1980s, did allow many temporary refuge in East Malaysia), so why are the “Rohingya” special ? Because they are Muslim ? Almost every article in the news is about the “Palestinians of Myanmar”. I have yet to see one article about the history of the first wave of boat people, that Malaysia let drown. I am not surprised. It is the usual campiness of the Left, finely attuned to Orwell: All cultures are equal but some (Islamic) cultures are more equal than others. I suppose we have to wait till 12 million Syrians are slaughtered, before they get equal time with the Rohingya. Last time I checked, the Rohingya weren’t being gassed with Clorine, but I am sure the always fair and objective Press will find a way, to ensure they are. And for every boat of Rohingya, another 200,000 Sudanese have been raped and massacred, oh but they are mostly Muslim and not even in Asia, so let’s not worry too much about them.
The author of this post asserts that Indonesia is bigger in economic, demographic and diplomatic terms. It is easy to compare one country’s GDP and its growth rate with another’s. Population totals similarly lend themselves to ready comparison, if one ignores how well-educated and productive the respective populations are. But how does one compare diplomatic ‘size’?
If, for example, Indonesia had a diplomatic staff of five in Beijing all of whom could speak Chinese and Australia had a staff of fifteen none of whom could speak that language, the diplomatic effectiveness, at least for certain purposes, of which of the two countries would be greater, Indonesia’s or Australia’s?
Recently, an issue came up that allowed us to compare the diplomatic prowess of the two countries. Jokowi sought clemency for two Indonesians on death row in Saudi Arabia, while Abbott sought clemency from Jokowi for two Australians.
As nobody needs to be reminded, all four unfortunates fell either under the executioner’s sword or facing the hail of a firing squad’s bullets. Both diplomatic demarches proved ineffectual. Does this mean that King Salman hasn’t yet been informed that Indonesia is rising? And does Jokowi’s refusal to give clemency to Chan and Sukumaran show he has indeed grasped that Australia is declining? Be that as it may, on this issue declining Australia’s and rising Indonesia’s diplomatic weight seemed to come out equal.
Jokowi has set Indonesian diplomacy a new challenge which will let us make a fresh judgement about its effectiveness. Seemingly forgetting SBY’s abortive attempt to help the Palestinians after he assumed office in 2004, one of the first fruits of which was his attendance at Arafat’s memorial ceremony in Cairo but not at his funeral in Ramallah, Jokowi is also determined to help the Palestinians.
Denouncing the UN for not doing enough at the recent Bandung Conference commemoration was a promising start. It may also have helped pay back Ban Ki-moon a little for his unwelcome lobbying with regard to Indonesia’s executions of drug traffickers.
This criticism of the UN cost Indonesia nothing and the briefing notes for it would hardly have taken ten minutes to draft for Jokowi. Maybe SBY’s old Palestine brief could have been dusted off to save even more bureaucratic time energy. But what’s the next step? A press release, a la Marty Natalegawa, aimed at ‘raising awareness’?
Given Indonesia’s lack of diplomatic pull in the Middle East and its non-recognition of Israel, it is hard to see how Jokowi’s Palestine initiative will have any greater impact than SBY’s.
Professor Camroux’s “think outside the box” juxtaposition approach is interesting. I am currently re-reading Grant Evans seminal The Politics Of Ritual And Remberance. Pages 28-31 especially relevant re. Thailand, both current and post-Bumiphol.
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The Rohingya and regional failure
Charles Santiago, chairperson of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) and a member of parliament in Malaysia, criticises Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai governments for their stance on the current refugee issue.
Ironically, the secretary-general of his party, Lim Guan Eng (they are both from opposition Democratic Action Party), agrees (happens very rarely) with Prime Minister Najib Razak. How bizarre.
– See more at: http://m.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/05/17/refugee-crisis-asean-s-great-moral-paralysis.html#sthash.iU3eTmrA.dpuf
The Rohingya and regional failure
“Islamism should NOT be a Leftist cause”.
By refusing to be coherent and abide by their most basic postulates that Left is pushing to the Right lots of people who did not originally belong there… West has been manipulated by the Saudis, and Israel, for the last 50 years …
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
I haven’t met Mulya Lubis for a long time but, in the years I knew him, my impression was that all his friends called him ‘Mul’, just as I did. I never knew why nobody then called him ‘Todung’. It was none of my business.
Nor do I know now what the diminutive for ‘Todung’ is. Is it ‘Tod’? Do his friends now call him ‘Tod’? ‘Mul’ is definitely the diminutive for ‘Mulya’.
I don’t know much about Mandailing culture. Maybe a Mandailing reader can explain why Todung Mulya Lubis has come to be called ‘Todung’ sometimes as he has aged. If I had Mul’s email address, I would ask him directly.
I am not buying into the question of his relations with PERADI. Tim Lindsey is the authority on subjects like that.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
Is Ken Ward incorrect again? Todung’s own Twitter account is “Todung Lubis”, @TodungLubis or https://twitter.com/TodungLubis (see again: https://theconversation.com/mulya-lubis-defender-of-chan-and-sukumaran-and-human-rights-in-indonesia-40950).
It all looks to prove Pierre Marthinus’ point about a serious Australian lack of “cultural competence”. If an elite of Indonesia experts cannot get Todung’s name right – and Todung’s been representing their own oligarchs in so many ways for so long now – how can they be expected to penetrate matters of legal and political complexity within such a basic cultural context?
The Rohingya and regional failure
Charles Santiago, Malaysian MP for Klang, really put it best when he described ASEAN as
“… really nothing more than a group of powerful people who indulge in much backslapping and handshakes, sit at dinner tables pretending all is well and ignore raising crucial issues to ensure they themselves are not put in a tight spot.”
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2015/04/resolving-rohingya-statelessness-issues.html#sthash.u3hGmykk.dpuf
ASEAN already faced a “test” over the 2012 state enforced disappearance of Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone.
ASEAN has done nothing.
Indeed…. what is the point of ASEAN.
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
Lubis, Santosa & Maramis is his firm’s current name after a 2012 change from Lubis, Santosa & Maulana. A CV document for the firm’s partner Lely Santosa indicates that the name “Mulya Lubis & Partners” may have ended some time before 2003: Lely’s 2011 CV alludes only to the Lubis, Santosa & Maulana name from 2002. From the many Indonesian sources I have read, I have not once seen any alluding to just a “Mulya Lubis”, despite the several partisan or business-affiliated sites which avoid the disbarment issue and would similarly accommodate Todung’s other apparent preferences and projections.
The Australian Embassy in Jakarta, besides not heeding the fact of Todung’s official disbarment, has not updated the firm’s name despite listing it on a select page dated January 2013 (see: http://www.indonesia.embassy.gov.au/jakt/Lawyer.html).
Further, the Embassy makes a comment which may be without legal or professional foundation in defining “advocate” as fulfilling an accredited national-level function in courts, as if more generally-defined lawyers are restricted to functioning in courts at province-level only.
Such DFAT advice appears misleading. Statutes UU No 18/2003 BAB I, Pasal 1, 1. and the Indonesian Advocates Code of Ethics (KEAI) BAB I, Pasal 1, a. define an Indonesian “advocate” (advokat) unambiguously as any lawfully accredited Indonesian lawyer, in or out of court, with no distinction as to provincial or national levels.
Todung has not met such definition since mid-2008
The Rohingya and regional failure
Have you seen with your own eyes Bamar people “push” “Rohingya” out to sea ? Does one instance of disingenuousness justify all the rest ? Does Bangladesh’s failure to institute birth control justify Myanmar merely letting in anyone who wants come in ? And if Dhaka cares so much, why aren’t they willing to take back what is theirs, anyway ?
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
I stand corrected. Some Indonesians call Lubis ‘Todung’.
Lubis himself prefers ‘Mulya’. His law firm, for example, is ‘Mulya Lubis and Partners’.
The Rohingya and regional failure
Does one instance of callousness towards those in danger justify another?
If so, yes, many groups have been persecuted in the past while third parties looked on and refused to help… so it’s OK for that to happen again to any group?
The Rohingya and regional failure
Perhaps hrk, you can ask Jake Lynch at Sydney University, an avowed Leftist and virulent defender of Islamic causes, or John Esposito at Georgetown University. You have been hibernating for a very long time. You have to be deaf, dumb and blind, not to see the causal relationship, which was rightly criticized by Liberals, (late) Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie. Islamism should NOT be a Leftist cause and before Edward Said, it was less so. I hardly think those defending Islamism, today, are clones of T.E. Lawrence. Get real…
The Rohingya and regional failure
I can safely say that the idea of an ASEAN Economic Community exists only as a fantasy in bureaucrats’ minds. It has no meaning whatsoever to the ordinary citizen. ASEAN itsef only functions as a talkshop where summits are meant for mutual backslapping and pageantry. Why else would Myanmar have signed up in the first place if it didn’t see ASEAN as a toothless tiger?
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
KW: “Nobody else calls Mr Lubis ‘Todung’.” It seems Ken Ward is entirely incorrect unless, of course, he regards all Indonesians as “nobodies”. If the latter, he should apologize, or the administrator should remove the comment accordingly.
All Indonesian sources I’ve read refer to Todung Mulya Lubis in short as “Todung” or “Teradu”. The only places I’ve seen the name “Mulya” used instead is in Australia’s Fairfax news or a piece by Krishna Sen on The Conversation [See: https://theconversation.com/mulya-lubis-defender-of-chan-and-sukumaran-and-human-rights-in-indonesia-40950%5D.
Of course, other Bataks like PERADI’s Otto Hasibuan, Hasanuddin Nasution, Leonard P Simorangkir, Patuan Sinaga, Hotman Paris Hutapea, etc., probably indicate the surest confirmation that the man is known in brief as “Todung”. But non-Batak Indonesians too all reveal the same easy reference to him as “Todung”.
[Headline]: Ini Alasan PERADI Tolak Todung di Pansel MK – Todung mengaku hanya ingin membangun MK yang kuat.
[Excerpt]: ‘Ketua Umum DPN PERADI Otto Hasibuan mengatakan pihaknya menolak keberadaan Todung dan Refly karena keduanya pernah…’
‘”…yang ditangani oleh saudara Todung dan Refly Harun,” tutur Otto.’
http://www.hukumonline.com/berita/baca/lt548fff89bd739/ini-alasan-peradi-tolak-todung-di-pansel-mk
[Headline]: Tindakan Todung dampingi Chevron dinilai ilegal
http://www.gresnews.com/berita/Hukum/2040213-tindakan-todung-dampingi-chevron-dinilai-ilegal/
‘Menurut Todung, senjata perlawanan…’
http://www.hukumonline.com/berita/baca/hol18388/conoco-anggap-gugatan-sapta-kabur-dan-tidak-jelas
‘”…yang kami ajukan,” kata Todung di Jakarta, Rabu’
‘Menurut Todung, permohonan uji materi…’
‘”…kepentingan klien,” kata Todung’
http://www.harnas.co/2015/04/15/pengacara-bali-nine-harapkan-uji-materi-terkabul
…and so on, far too many to mention here.
Ken Ward’s comment seems quite unsubstantiated and bizarre
The Rohingya and regional failure
“Indonesia and Malaysia have ordered their naval forces to return any Rohingya boats to sea.”
It is a duty for Muslims to spread Islam by any means … That is why Muslim countries refuse to take their share of the Muslim migrants ! Read Marshall Sahlins “The segmentary lineage : An Organization of predatory expansion” (in American Anthropologist, 63, 1961, pp. 322-43) !
Australia-Indonesia: the view from Jakarta
When President Jimmy Carter met Prime Minister John Malcolm Fraser over thirty years ago, he unintentionally showed his ignorance of Australia by calling his visitor ‘John’, rather than ‘Malcolm’, which was how he was known to the rest of the world.
Similarly, Mr Davies insists on calling Mulya Lubis ‘Todung’. Doesn’t he like the name ‘Mulya’? Nobody else calls Mr Lubis ‘Todung’.
The Rohingya and regional failure
Since when has, what you refer to as “Left” an islamic or islamist agenda?
It seems that too many persons, especially journalists and international NGO use the Rohingya refugee problem for their own ends. So far, those who do have knowledge and information about the situation are hardly ever referred to.
The Rohingya and regional failure
Malaysia pushed the Vietnamese “boat people” out to sea, after the fall of Saigon (though, later in the 1980s, did allow many temporary refuge in East Malaysia), so why are the “Rohingya” special ? Because they are Muslim ? Almost every article in the news is about the “Palestinians of Myanmar”. I have yet to see one article about the history of the first wave of boat people, that Malaysia let drown. I am not surprised. It is the usual campiness of the Left, finely attuned to Orwell: All cultures are equal but some (Islamic) cultures are more equal than others. I suppose we have to wait till 12 million Syrians are slaughtered, before they get equal time with the Rohingya. Last time I checked, the Rohingya weren’t being gassed with Clorine, but I am sure the always fair and objective Press will find a way, to ensure they are. And for every boat of Rohingya, another 200,000 Sudanese have been raped and massacred, oh but they are mostly Muslim and not even in Asia, so let’s not worry too much about them.
Looking ahead: Australia-Indonesia relations
The author of this post asserts that Indonesia is bigger in economic, demographic and diplomatic terms. It is easy to compare one country’s GDP and its growth rate with another’s. Population totals similarly lend themselves to ready comparison, if one ignores how well-educated and productive the respective populations are. But how does one compare diplomatic ‘size’?
If, for example, Indonesia had a diplomatic staff of five in Beijing all of whom could speak Chinese and Australia had a staff of fifteen none of whom could speak that language, the diplomatic effectiveness, at least for certain purposes, of which of the two countries would be greater, Indonesia’s or Australia’s?
Recently, an issue came up that allowed us to compare the diplomatic prowess of the two countries. Jokowi sought clemency for two Indonesians on death row in Saudi Arabia, while Abbott sought clemency from Jokowi for two Australians.
As nobody needs to be reminded, all four unfortunates fell either under the executioner’s sword or facing the hail of a firing squad’s bullets. Both diplomatic demarches proved ineffectual. Does this mean that King Salman hasn’t yet been informed that Indonesia is rising? And does Jokowi’s refusal to give clemency to Chan and Sukumaran show he has indeed grasped that Australia is declining? Be that as it may, on this issue declining Australia’s and rising Indonesia’s diplomatic weight seemed to come out equal.
Jokowi has set Indonesian diplomacy a new challenge which will let us make a fresh judgement about its effectiveness. Seemingly forgetting SBY’s abortive attempt to help the Palestinians after he assumed office in 2004, one of the first fruits of which was his attendance at Arafat’s memorial ceremony in Cairo but not at his funeral in Ramallah, Jokowi is also determined to help the Palestinians.
Denouncing the UN for not doing enough at the recent Bandung Conference commemoration was a promising start. It may also have helped pay back Ban Ki-moon a little for his unwelcome lobbying with regard to Indonesia’s executions of drug traffickers.
This criticism of the UN cost Indonesia nothing and the briefing notes for it would hardly have taken ten minutes to draft for Jokowi. Maybe SBY’s old Palestine brief could have been dusted off to save even more bureaucratic time energy. But what’s the next step? A press release, a la Marty Natalegawa, aimed at ‘raising awareness’?
Given Indonesia’s lack of diplomatic pull in the Middle East and its non-recognition of Israel, it is hard to see how Jokowi’s Palestine initiative will have any greater impact than SBY’s.
Succession and legitimacy: Vajiralongkorn and T├┤n Duc Thang
Professor Camroux’s “think outside the box” juxtaposition approach is interesting. I am currently re-reading Grant Evans seminal The Politics Of Ritual And Remberance. Pages 28-31 especially relevant re. Thailand, both current and post-Bumiphol.
“Never Again”: time to end genocide in Burma
Mahathir’s participation would be much more credible if his government would not reject boatfuls of Myanmar refugees from the shores of Malaysia.
Looking ahead: Australia-Indonesia relations
I really enjoyed reading this article. It is balanced and insightful. I look forward to reading more articles on Australia-Indonesia relations!