Article

2005-01-21 Southeast Asia

Indonesia kills 120 rebels in devastated Aceh, tsunami toll nears 220,000

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Posted by God Save The World 2005-01-21 00:00:00 AM|| || Front Page|| [8 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 It didn't take long for the bitter fractious hate to resume between the Indonesian military and the GAM! I am so glad now, I didn't give a dime!! This one was just a warning, the next one may be a 9.8...sufficient to wipe away the hate; like it did on ancient Crete!

Posted by smn 2005-01-21 1:04:01 AM|| 2005-01-21 1:04:01 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 So....are these 120 deaders part of the tsunami toll? Or do they get their own little classification?

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-01-21 1:37:23 AM|| 2005-01-21 1:37:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Given the reaction to our showing up to help, I thought the following cartoon caption in the Columbia, SC The State was apt:

"Q: If the loss of memory is called amnesia, what is the loss of gratitude?"
"A: Indonesia."

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2005-01-21 7:34:29 AM|| 2005-01-21 7:34:29 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 The United States called for a political answer to the decades-old struggle in Aceh,

Reminds me of my mom. My sister and I would be fighting/screaming in the back of the house..and every once in a while it would be enough to rouse her from her book and she'd call out, "Now, now, children! Play nicely!"

Posted by 2b 2005-01-21 7:40:44 AM|| 2005-01-21 7:40:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 2b, did your mother really say that? So did mine! Perhaps they attended the same parenting class.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-01-21 8:25:54 AM|| 2005-01-21 8:25:54 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 smn: It didn't take long for the bitter fractious hate to resume between the Indonesian military and the GAM! I am so glad now, I didn't give a dime!! This one was just a warning, the next one may be a 9.8...sufficient to wipe away the hate; like it did on ancient Crete!

This isn't hate. It's war. Both sides are playing for keeps. They're fighting over two things that won't go away just because of the tsunami - (1) Aceh's drive for independence and (2) oil on Sumatra which the Acehnese want along with their independence. The honorable truce you hear about in the movies is the exception, not the rule. If Aceh pulls it off, the Indonesian federation could break apart, given that it's made up of nationalities that speak hundreds of distinct languages. There is this simplistic view among journalists that this war is just a misunderstanding or a children's squabble. It's not - and the outcome will decide whether Indonesia will continue to exist as a unitary state.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-01-21 9:48:27 AM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-01-21 9:48:27 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Both sides are equally roguish...they can murder without accountability in this 'Africa of South Asia'. There's nothing much to choose between them.
Even their plagiarized national motto (which nobody observe seriously)called Panca Sila has inserted their monotheistic deity where it did not actually belong. All hypes and no Spirit of another mossieland.

Posted by Duh 2005-01-21 9:59:19 AM|| 2005-01-21 9:59:19 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 My 2 youngest use to fight over ownership of this ratty old pillow,after months of dealing with this on-going battle I took care of the problem.
Threw the danm thing away!

Posted by Raptor 2005-01-21 9:59:24 AM|| 2005-01-21 9:59:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 If Indonesia breaks apart, the resulting war over boundaries (or from a Javanese standpoint, a war of unification) could kill tens of millions, and make Yugoslavia look like a cakewalk. This is definitely not a children's squabble - the truth is that many of the wars that determined Europe's current borders and established strong nation-states with a strong sense of national identity were not fought in Asia because of European imperialism.

These national rivalries lay dormant for hundreds of years. They may yet rise to the surface. Those who say that these are meaningless squabbles ought to look at a map of Europe. The European nation-states are tiny compared to their Asian counterparts, the primary reason being that many Asian states are the artificial remnants of European empires completely unrelated to linguistic or ethnic boundaries. The Europeans have left, but the lingustic and ethnic differences - the same kinds that differentiate the European nation states and were the subject of hundreds of European wars of self-determination / empire - have not been sorted out. Aceh is just the tip of the iceberg.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-01-21 10:45:12 AM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-01-21 10:45:12 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 Zhang,

Credit where credit is due. You are precisely right. Also, such warfare and bloodshed (although having greater impact on Australia) would directly and adversely impact U.S. interests (shipping, etc.)

Posted by cingold 2005-01-21 11:53:18 AM|| 2005-01-21 11:53:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 The other feature of the Asian map is the last remianing empire in the World, China. While not the result of European imperialism, is it susceptible to the same centripital forces as Indonesia, in your opinion, ZF?

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-01-21 11:58:28 AM|| 2005-01-21 11:58:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 MD: The other feature of the Asian map is the last remianing empire in the World, China. While not the result of European imperialism, is it susceptible to the same centripital forces as Indonesia, in your opinion, ZF?

Much as it pains me to say it, I think not. Unlike Asian countries like India and Indonesia, which owe their existence as unitary states to the European powers, Chinese empire was built and kept together by the Chinese and sinified kingdoms on its borders (as Rome was in the later stages of its history). Various pretenders (i.e. claimants) have (more or less) maintained the unity of the Chinese state for over 2000 years. The Chinese state has stayed together because it has mastered the art of holding together an empire - providing a degree of autonomy while pulling back on the reins when the provinces become too unruly.

In addition, the idea of a unitary Chinese state has had an extremely strong hold on the minds of the population over the milennia. Various European kings have lay claim to being inheritors of the Roman empire. None have succeeded. The hold of ethnic-linguistic differences have proved so strong that even the Irish did not deign to remain part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. What would it take to get Europeans to become part of the Roman empire? EU or no EU, I can't see it happening. That's the power of nationalism - of the kind that ensures that the majority ethno-linguistic group of a given country get to set the mores of that country, i.e. that French gets spoken in France, German in Germany, etc. By contrast, the Chinese empire has not yet encountered nationalism - which is why every pretender to the throne has succeeded in unifying the Chinese empire - with brief interruptions lasting a total of perhaps two hundred years, for about 2200 years.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-01-21 11:51:20 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-01-21 11:51:20 PM|| Front Page Top

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