Newsletter 52
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Dec 21, 2009
Dec 20, 2009
As Laos Joins the Globalized World, The Price It Pays Is Independence
The SEA Games, which bring together the 11 countries in the region for a biannual sporting event, may not be the Olympics or the World Cup in football. But land-locked Laos, long considered one of the world’s poorest countries, hosted the event with pride and enthusiasm. News of the Games top the usually dreary bulletins of the Lao News Agency, a state-run institution in this still communist nation in Southeast Asia.
The Games also come at a time when Laos is more than ever before engaging the outside world in business and development. The World Bank stated in a report this year that Laos is weathering the global financial crisis better than many of its neighbors. Although GDP growth is expected to be 5 percent this year, down from 7 percent in 2008, it is still an impressive performance. Exports of electricity to power-hungry countries in the region, mining and now tourism are the engines behind this growth. New buildings are going up in Vientiane and elsewhere, and previously pot-holed, dusty roads have been spruced up. The Internet and mobile phones are no longer novelties.
But all this has come at a price. A foreign observer once described Laos not as a “land-locked but a land-linked country” with different economic, political and cultural influences coming in from all directions. In a 1982 report, the Washington-based monthly Indochina Issues said that “Laos’s strategic location, coupled with its chaotic terrain, ethnic complexity and economic backwardness, has convinced Lao leaders that the country’s options are either chaos or dependency on a more powerful ally.” A generation later, that assessment remains true. And that ally is increasingly becoming China.
For China, Laos is attractive both for its natural resources and for its strategic location as a gateway to Southeast Asia. Although logging is supposedly strictly controlled by the authorities, recent visitors to the northern province of Phong Saly observed convoys of trucks with freshly felled timber crossing the border into China. In other northern areas, vast tracts of forest have been cut down to make way for rubber plantations geared toward the Chinese market. The Chinese have assisted Laos in road construction, hydroelectric power development, and mineral extraction. Moreover, China has paid for the construction of showcase buildings in the capital. The first was a huge “Cultural Center” in Vientiane — and now, hardly surprisingly, the stadium for the SEA Games.
Though China is not among the 11 countries competing in Vientiane, without Beijing’s assistance the venue for the Games would not have been nearly as spectacular. Not wanting to be outdone, Laos’s old ally, Vietnam, decided to pay for the construction of the adjacent Athletes’ Village.
Part of the original deal with China was that as many as 50,000 Chinese workers and their families would be part of a “New City Development” scheme around the stadium. But, unusual for Laos where few dare to criticize official policies, this plan was met with opposition from even within the country’s National Assembly. It’s now going to be a much smaller “Chinatown,” but the trend is obvious. Newly arrived Chinese migrants have set up shops and other businesses in Vientiane and elsewhere.
The changing nature of Laos’s international allegiances is perhaps best reflected in the history of three apartment blocks on the road to Vientiane’s Wattay Airport. Completed in the 1960s to accommodate operatives of the US Central Intelligence Agency and other American advisers, the buildings were taken over by Soviet experts and technicians when the communist Pathet Lao seized power in December 1975. Today, they are called the Mekong Hotel and Apartments and cater to a mainly Chinese clientele. One floor houses the Beijing Restaurant, with signs in Chinese, Lao and Roman script, and a Chinese-style nightclub with a karaoke bar. The road from the airport into the city is also lined with new company offices, shops and restaurants displaying the names of the establishments in Chinese characters.
In October, the links between China and Laos — and beyond — were cemented in an agreement to build a new fourth bridge across the Mekong River. This fourth bridge will span the Mekong River between the cities Ban Houei Xai in Laos and Chiang Khong in Thailand, replacing the existing, slow and cumbersome ferry connection between the two towns. A new, all-weather highway already connects Ban Houei Xai with Boten on Laos’s border with China. The new bridge will provide the first direct road link between China and Southeast Asia.
Lao authorities expect that the 480-meter-long bridge will be finished within 30 months with the cost shared equally by Thailand and Laos. Laos’s share of the project will be paid with a grant of $20 million from China.
China’s expanding influence in Laos is particularly significant in the light of its long-term rivalry with Vietnam for influence. Since the early 1950s, when the Vietnamese Communist Party helped found the Pathet Lao, Hanoi had a dominating influence: North Vietnamese regular units fought alongside the Laotians they had trained to overthrow the US-backed Rightist government. Vietnamese officials ran much of the administration during the French colonial era, which ended in 1953, and many stayed on as businessmen and private entrepreneurs. Newly arrived Vietnamese often have relatives in Mekong river-valley towns like Vientiane, and can more easily obtain local identification documents — and, eventually, citizenship. Vietnamese economic influence, and investment, is especially evident in the south.
But even there, cheap Chinese consumer goods abound in local markets, and it’s only a matter of time before China’s entrepreneurs become more firmly established. A foothold in southern Laos would give China more direct access to Cambodia — another country that has moved closer to China in recent years — and comparatively prosperous urban areas in northeastern Thailand. But despite recent economic progress, Laos’s small population alone will never provide the sufficient volume of demand for Chinese goods that Beijing seeks.
On Oct. 23, Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Laotian counterpart, Choummaly Sayasone, met in Beijing to reaffirm their cordial relationship. A member of the Lao delegation stated that Laos and China would strengthen their “comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation,” and that “with joint efforts, Laos-China traditional friendship will last forever.” Although shrouded in traditional, communist rhetoric, the message was clear: China is in Laos to stay — well beyond the SEA Games.
Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist based in Thailand and the author of several works on Asia, including “Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia .” Copyright YaleGlobal 2009 , Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.
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Tamils in Canada vote for independent homeland in Sri Lanka
In the latest such vote to be held by Tamils of Sri Lankan descent living abroad, members of the diaspora across Canada overwhelmingly voted “yes” on a referendum held Saturday calling for an independent homeland.
Montreal, Quebec —
Tamils of Sri Lankan origin across Canada overwhelmingly voted “yes” on a referendum held Saturday calling for an independent homeland in the island nation.
Political analysts say this goal is unlikely to be achieved anytime soon, but that the votes may help reinvigorate the pro-Tamil Tiger diaspora in the wake of the Tigers' devastating military defeat this year after decades of fighting.
“The referendum has been organized by groups supportive of the Tamil Tigers,” says Dr. Narenda Subramanian, associate professor of political science at McGill University, who specializes in South Asia. “They’ll use this as a way of revitalizing their pro-Tiger network outside Sri Lanka. They may be laying the foundation for a transnational Eelam government, a legitimate self-governing authority outside Sri Lanka that will one day take over a future Tamil state in Sri Lanka - in the event that ever happens.”
Canada vote only the latest
Canada is the third country to be holding such a referendum this year. It is home to the largest Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in the world, an estimated 150,000 people.
The first referendum was held last May in Norway, which is one of the few Western countries that hasn’t banned the Tamil Tigers. Norway brokered the 2002 cease-fire between the Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sri Lankan government, which was torn up formally in Jan. 2008.
The diaspora in France voted on the referendum just last weekend.
The turnout was high in all three countries, according to the pro-Tamil Tiger website Tamilnet, which also reports that the vote was 99 percent “yes” in all three countries.
In the referenda, people of Sri Lankan origin were asked to vote “yes” or “no” on the following statement: “I aspire for the formation of an independent and sovereign state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka on the basis that the Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka make a distinct nation, have a traditional homeland, and a right to self-determination.”
The statement itself is drawn from a 1976 resolution adopted by Tamil political parties in Sri Lanka in the face of deteriorating minority rights before the island nation plunged into civil war in 1983. Sri Lankan Tamils only make up about 18 percent of its population. The origins of the ethnic conflict go back to the changing of the country’s language and education policies to favor the Sinhalese majority.
Does the vote matter?
On why it’s necessary to hold a diaspora referendum now on a resolution that was drafted 33 years ago, Senthan Nada, one of the organizers and spokesperson for the Toronto-based Coalition to Stop the War, says it’s a touchstone to determine the future path. “The 1976 resolution calling for an independent state - is this still the way to go forward to find a peaceful and lasting solution? That’s what we want to establish by a democratic vote.”
The referenda will have no effect in Sri Lanka, says Madras-based political analyst Ramani Hariharan, a former intelligence officer working on the Sri Lanka dossier for the Indian army.
“The Sri Lankan government won’t comment on this because they don’t want to recognize this as being influential," says Mr. Hariharan. "It won't change anything in the country.” He says the Sri Lankan government is using its own strategy to win over conciliatory elements of the Tamil diaspora.
According to Hariharan, the real motive of the referenda may just be to fill the leadership vacuum created by the death of rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and lay claim to the vast financial empire the Tamil Tigers have worldwide. “The Tigers want to create some sort of legitimacy to revive the movement,” he says.
But Nada says that holding the referenda in countries like Canada, rather than in Sri Lanka among its Tamil citizens, is important. “From the viewpoint of the community here, the Tamils in Sri Lanka are disenfranchised," says Nada. "We are trying to voice their concerns because they can’t talk freely.”
Lalitha Chandra, who uses a fictitious name in the fear of reprisal for her views, abstained from voting. She has misgivings about where all this will lead because she has seen her family suffer from the civil war that claimed nearly 100,000 lives.
“I just want peace," she says. "After all these years of fighting, we know that the Sri Lankan government is dead against separation. So, realistically speaking, I don’t know how it’s going to happen, because any solution has to be worked out together between the Sinhalese and the Tamils.”
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Serbs celebrate new freedom to travel Europe without visas
The European Union on Saturday opened its borders to visa-free travel for more than ten million Serbs, Montenegrins, and Macedonians after nearly 20 years of tight restrictions.
New Belgrade, Serbia —
At a snowy bus stop in New Belgrade, Serbia, Nadja Miladinovic waited to venture abroad for the first time without a visa.
She hadn't done much planning, but said Friday that she was headed to Vienna for the weekend for no other reason than that she could now take advantage of a new agreement with the European Union that allows residents of Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia to travel visa-free throughout most of Europe.
“Now it’s different," says Ms. Miladinovic. "You feel free.”
Milan Nikolic, a sociologist and political analyst in Belgrade, calls the change symbolic, pointing out that less than 10 percent of Serbs actually have passports. Mr. Nikolic does not expect the number to rise significantly anytime soon, but he does acknowledge the importance of this agreement between Serbia and the EU. “This is more important than the direct effects,” he says. “In Serbia, it is considered rare to be treated in a positive way. We are used to the Hague coming and saying, ‘You are not doing this.’”
End of a 'counterproductive' restriction
Before the wars of the 1990s, an old red Yugoslavian passport was quite well received. But war in the Balkans changed that. The passports were changed to blue and residents needed visas to gain entry almost everywhere in Europe. Upholding the requirement has contributed to a feeling of isolation in Serbia.
Nikolic says the visa requirement was a tool used to cut Serbia off, and that the “blanket punishment” was counterproductive. He says it's widely known that war criminals and members of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime easily traveled in the 1990s and beyond even with visa restrictions in place, but that everyday Serbians were blocked. “If criminals and Milosevic's people never had any problems with visas, what does that say about the punishment?” says Nikolic.
“This affected the generation who voted against Milosevic in 2000, and the people who protested against him in the 90s,” says Djordje Milojevic. “The conditions just offended the people who are pro-Europe.”
Milojevic left the country to travel in 2007. But there were hefty fees attached to the visa application and a month long wait. If his application had been denied, he would have been out more than 100 euros. It is living under such a system that has a trapping effect, say many of the people from his generation.
“People felt in prison. You couldn’t leave unless you asked permission and filled out a very long visa form,” he says. “It is a big liberation. You actually feel liberated right now.”
Feeling trapped
Jovana Stokanic tried several times to obtain a visa. She had dreamed of studying in Germany. Applying for a visa meant signing in with the embassy at 1 a.m. to ensure a spot at the beginning of the line when it opened at 7 a.m. Once the embassy opened, an hour or so wait was considered good and meant finishing around 11 a.m., she said. Then she had to come back one week later and find out if she had been granted a visa.
She said her third rejection made her feel like she was going to have a nervous breakdown. No one ever explained to her why she was being denied. All she was told was that she could apply again in six months. But the idea of going to Germany no longer seemed possible. She finally decided to stay and study in Belgrade.
“The worst is when you don’t know you are in jail. If you can’t see a better opportunity for life, you accept it,” says Stokanic.
“I think the whole generation of young people here were really damaged because they couldn’t travel freely,” said Nebojsa Milenkovic, media adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration in Serbia. “It is like living in a box.”
Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Bozidar Delic created a project to allow 50 Serbs that had never left the borders of the former Yugoslavia to spend eight nights abroad, traveling in Europe. The average age of those selected is 28. The group is traveling together and left Serbia late Friday night.
Aleksandra Jankovic, head of the office’s public relations unit, said the participants are from all over Serbia, including small villages. She said many of them might not have had such an opportunity to travel due to finances or obligations.
“It’s an opportunity to see other cultures, meet people and see how they live,” said Jankovic. “To make a bridge between Serbia and Europe.”
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In Indonesia, Middlemen Mold Outcome of Justice
JAKARTA, Indonesia — They have long worked illegally in the shadows of Indonesia’s police stations, attorney general’s office and courts, the common link in what is called Indonesia’s “judicial mafia.” Called “markuses,” they are middlemen who can persuade corrupt police officers, prosecutors and judges to drop a case against a client for the right amount of money.
The markuses gained national attention last month after they were featured prominently in wiretaps involving a long-running battle between the nation’s law enforcement agencies and anticorruption officials.
With that leap into unaccustomed and unwanted prominence, they were transformed overnight into symbols of this country’s broken justice system. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that he would make eradicating the judicial mafia of markuses and corrupt officials a priority of his second term.
Indonesians, who in the past were aware only dimly, if at all, of the markuses, are now urged to report wrongdoing to the government by mailing in envelopes marked with the message “Ganyang mafia,” or just “Crush the mafia.”
But lawyers, officials and watchdog groups warn that uprooting the so-called judicial mafia will require an overhaul of the country’s law enforcement and justice systems. They say that Mr. Yudhoyono, who shies away from confrontation, is unlikely to push through changes inside the nation’s powerful police force, attorney general’s office and courts, institutions that are considered among Indonesia’s most corrupt.
Most experts agree that it will take years, or even decades, to reform the criminal justice system in Indonesia, which is ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt countries by Transparency International, a Berlin-based anticorruption organization. The 32-year rule of President Suharto, which ended just a decade ago, left behind law enforcement agencies that perpetuate graft, the experts say.
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the leader of a new presidential task force to reform the justice system, said Indonesia’s criminal justice system was fertile ground for middlemen representing moneyed clients.
Last month, wiretapped conversations revealed a plot by a prominent businessman, along with police officials and prosecutors, to fabricate a case against officials at the Corruption Eradication Commission, the nation’s chief anticorruption agency. The people heard in the wiretaps spoke of bribing key officials by handing out cash through a network of middlemen.
What shocked most Indonesians was not the brazenness of the speakers but the fact that the practices mentioned in the wiretaps seemed routine. By contrast, Indonesians without money have seemed increasingly at the mercy of a legal system that metes out severe punishment for seemingly harmless offenses.
“There is no normative standard of punishment in this country,” said Adnan Buyung Nasution, 75, one of Indonesia’s most prominent lawyers. “The punishment is very heavy in some cases, very light in others. That’s why people are disgusted at the justice system.”
The investigation, prosecution and judgment of a particular case follow rules dictated less by the law than by the free market of the middlemen. “It depends on how much money you have,” said Mr. Nasution, who recently led a presidential advisory group that recommended far-reaching changes in the country’s law enforcement agencies.
He added: “Each stage — the police, the attorney general’s office, the courts — has its markuses. But there are markuses that are so dominant, they can arrange everything in one package.”
In dealing with the police, the markuses — who are typically relatives of police officials, lawyers, journalists or anyone with contacts in law enforcement agencies — bribe police officials on behalf of a client in trouble with the law. With money, they persuade the police to change evidence or drop a case, according to watchdog groups, police officials and lawyers.
Because the money is usually distributed to the officer’s supervisors, police officers with a good nose for potentially lucrative cases tend to rise quickly in the force, said Neta Pane, executive director of Indonesia Police Watch, a private group.
Mr. Pane said that police officers had a strong incentive to engage in corrupt practices from the very beginning of their careers. To get into the national police force, applicants must pay bribes, which here in the capital range from $6,000 to $9,000, he said. Typically, the applicants are in a hurry to repay the sum, which they have borrowed and cannot repay on a low-ranking officer’s monthly salary of $100.
“The system requires corruption to survive,” Mr. Pane said.
Aryanto Sutadi, 58, a retired official who ran the national police’s legal division until last month, estimated that 25 percent of police officers bent the law to earn extra income. But Mr. Sutadi estimated that 90 percent of police officers accepted some form of “gifts.”
“If someone is satisfied with the service he has received and gives gifts to show his gratitude, that is not considered bad,” Mr. Sutadi said.
Accepting gifts is an illegal, though commonly accepted, practice among police officers, prosecutors and judges. In fact, many people draw an ethical line between those who actively seek bribes and those who passively accept gifts. Markuses also hand out gifts on behalf of a client or a lawyer.
“That’s our culture,” said Otto C. Kaligis, a prominent lawyer whose office walls are adorned with photographs of him standing next to Suharto and President Obama. “Then it’s O.K. No problem if the clients, as a sign of gratitude, are willing to give.”
But Mr. Kaligis said a lawyer unwilling to give gifts to judges would not win many cases. “When, for instance, as a lawyer you open a law firm and then you lose 40 percent, then you are not marketable,” he said.
So far, attempts to reform or monitor the police, prosecutors and judges have been largely cosmetic, experts say.
Created in 2005 to oversee the nation’s judges, the Judicial Commission recently moved into a gleaming, six-story building with the capacity to house a staff far larger than the commission’s 200 employees. Inside, the commission’s posters display mafia-like judges wielding guns and holding stacks of money. The posters urge people to report corrupt judges, saying, “Don’t let them kill justice.”
Since its founding, the commission has received 6,555 complaints about judges, said Busyro Muqoddas, the commission’s chairman, adding that Indonesia had 6,900 judges. But with limited powers of investigation and no authority to summon judges for interrogation, the commission has been able to recommend sanctions against only 39 judges suspected of corruption.
Indonesia’s Supreme Court, which oversees the conduct of all the nation’s courts, has mostly ignored the commission’s recommendations, choosing instead to protect colleagues, Mr. Muqoddas said.
Of the 39 judges suspected of corruption, only 2 have been fired, for accepting bribes.
A bill to strengthen the commission’s powers sits in the Parliament, Mr. Muqoddas said, but he added that he held little hope for its passage. Parliament, ranked as the country’s most corrupt institution by Transparency International, recently announced a list of 55 priority bills it planned to take up next year.
“We weren’t on the list,” Mr. Muqoddas said.
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Overreaching leaves Obama with few friends
By Kathleen Parker
Sunday, December 20, 2009; A25
Perhaps it is the spirit of the season, but my empathy receptors are in overdrive for poor Barack Obama. All he wanted for Christmas was a health-care reform bill -- and all he got was a lousy insurance industry bailout that few can love.
Lefties hate it because there's no public option and no Medicare buy-in for those 55 and over. Righties hate it because requiring that Americans buy private insurance or face penalties means taxpayers will have to hand over more of their hard-earned dollars (assuming they have a job) to the government.
Obama, in other words, is having a Harriet Miers moment. Or, rather, he's having a George W. Bush moment.
When Bush nominated the in-over-her-head Miers to the Supreme Court, his fan base turned on him. As one ardent Bush supporter told me at the time: "It was in that moment that I realized he really might not know what he's doing."
And so things seem to have turned for Obama. Left-leaning Democrats suddenly are wondering: Who is this guy? What happened to the liberal dream-maker who was going to provide health care to every person in the country while hand-feeding grateful polar bears basking on vast expanses of restored sea ice?
Obama didn't so much move center as he just stood there and let others craft his seminal legislation. Now, it would appear, he can't quite close the deal.
The rabble from Democrats must be deeply rousing for Republicans exhausted by their own circular firing squad, as they watch the left collapse on itself like an imploding black hole. Republicans now need only get out of the way as leaders on the left are forming their own death panels to urge euthanizing the Senate health bill.
"Kill it," says Howard Dean. "Kill it," says Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post. "Kill this monstrosity," says Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos Web site, which vigorously fertilized Obama's grass roots. Meanwhile, Obama's poll numbers continue to tumble. A Rasmussen poll released Monday shows that just 40 percent of voters favor the health-care plan and 56 percent oppose it. Sixty-three percent of senior citizens oppose the plan.
In its daily presidential tracking poll, Rasmussen showed Friday that only 28 percent of the nation's voters strongly approve of Obama's performance, while 42 percent strongly disapprove. Overall, 44 percent "somewhat approve" of the president's performance.
Suddenly, the entire organism known as "Obama" seems endangered, not to mention all those Democrats up for reelection in just 10 months. Those looking for a scapegoat have pointed to Joe Lieberman for gutting the Senate bill of the public option and the Medicare expansion.
But the health-care rift is only a symptom of a more serious disease afflicting this administration. It isn't so much hubris, though that is part of the problem. It isn't even narcissism, primarily. Obama's fever is grandiosity -- an inflated self-confidence and a sense of power exceeding one's means.
Most politicians suffer some degree of grandiosity, or else they'd never run for office. But Obama's is of a higher order, in part owing to a worshipful world (see Berlin) and a confluence of urgent events. Cutting the man some slack, no one could pull off what he has attempted to manage -- two wars, a crashing global economy, climate change, health care, energy and unemployment. The scope of such challenges is what prompted man once upon a time to invent deities.
Obama, a mere mortal, is having to invent himself, learning a painful executive lesson in the process: One cannot be all things to all people, nor is it possible to do several things at once effectively. The image that comes to mind is of a dog racing down the beach to chase a flock of seagulls.
The growing sense now is that Obama is desperate -- for any kind of bill. What matters is checking the box next to "health care reform" and declaring some kind of victory.
Thus, the man who was going to remain above the political fray has revealed himself as pluperfectly political, ready to settle for the very kind of mandate (without the public option) that he opposed as a candidate challenging Hillary Clinton. Rather than inspiring confidence, he has inspired a groundswell of disapproval and a populist uprising that may allow Republicans to clean House come November.
In the meantime, left and right finally have discovered a common foe. Too bad for the country that his name is Obama.
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How to set up a new computer
By Rob Pegoraro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 20, 2009; G04
There's a reason computer stores sell concierge services to set up your new machine -- getting these things out of the box and plugged in represents only the start of the fun.
Outsourcing the labor of fixing system settings, ditching unwanted software and configuring a backup routine can save time, but doing the job yourself will save cash and help acquaint you with the computer. And with the arrival of Microsoft's Windows 7 and Apple's Mac OS X Snow Leopard, some of this work has gotten easier than it was just a year ago.
The first step, as ever, has to be securing the computer against online threats. On a PC, you won't be able to avoid this -- the bundled security program will pop up windows demanding that you register and start your trial subscription.
On a Mac, you have to do only one thing, but it's not obvious: Turn on the system firewall that Apple inexplicably left off. Open System Preferences, click its Security icon, click the Firewall tab and click its Start button.
At this point, either Windows or Mac OS X should have begun fetching software updates for you (if not, click the Windows Control Panel's "Check for updates" link or select OS X's Software Update program from the Apple-icon menu). After they do their job, you'll have to fill in a few gaps.
Whether on a Mac or a PC, get the latest version of the Adobe Flash plug-in, used to play videos and other interactive content on the Web, at http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer. Windows users will also need the latest fixes for Adobe's Reader (http://get.adobe.com/reader), Sun Microsystems' Java (http://java.com) and Apple's QuickTime (http://apple.com/quicktime).
Your second move has to be setting up a backup routine. In Windows, type "backup" into the Control Panel's search box -- or click the little flag in the bottom right corner of the screen, Win 7's way of reminding you about pending system-maintenance chores -- to have Windows start backing up your data to a CD, DVD, or external flash or hard drive. Apple's Time Machine software is simpler but pickier, requiring a separate hard drive. If you don't have one, make that your very next purchase.
With security and backup done, your third move can be de-cluttering the computer. There's far more of this to do on most PCs, thanks to the inept software bundles that most manufacturers inflict on their customers. Drag any unwanted desktop links or shortcuts to the Recycle Bin; hide space-wasting browser toolbars by clicking the "x" at the left end of each; and uninstall trial software and other bundleware you're sure you don't want through the Control Panel.
The free PCDecrapifier (http://pcdecrapifier.com) can automate much of this work -- but decline any offers by it to remove updater tools for Java or the computer vendor's own software.
Apple doesn't ship the junk that the PC vendors seem so fond of, but you can still tidy up the Dock, that strip of icons at the bottom of the screen, by dragging away shortcuts to unused programs.
You may want to replace a PC's vendor's bundleware with the useful programs that it should have installed. The free, open-source Mozilla Firefox browser (http://mozilla.com) is a faster replacement for Internet Explorer (and a good alternative to Safari on a Mac). Because Windows 7 doesn't include e-mail software, many vendors load Microsoft's free Windows Live Mail; if your PC didn't include that, you can download it yourself (http://download.live.com/wlmail) or the competing, free, Mozilla Thunderbird (http://getthunderbird.com). For photo management, consider Microsoft's free Windows Live Photo Gallery (http://download.live.com/photogallery) or Google's free Picasa (http://picasa.com). Finally, while Windows Media Player 12 has grown into a pretty good music application, it can't subscribe to podcasts or work with iPods; for either of those tasks, get Apple's iTunes (http://apple.com/itunes).
Not tired yet? You might as well wrap up the day by customizing the computer a little. On a Mac, try moving the Dock to the right-hand side of the screen to leave more room for your applications, renaming the hard drive to something more interesting than "Macintosh HD" and enabling right-clicking (a.k.a. "secondary click") in System Preferences' Mouse or Trackpad window. On a PC, "pin" shortcuts to programs on the taskbar so you don't have to find them in the Start menu, change your user name from the default (most often, the name of the PC's manufacturer) and peel off all those useless stickers. You own the computer now; you might as well make it yours.
Living with technology, or trying to? Read more at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward.
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Web users unite: Let's tell sites to pay up
By Kevin Kelleher
Sunday, December 20, 2009; G04
Wake up, Web users. It's time you demanded your fair share for the vast wealth you are helping to build for the Internet's most popular sites. Yahoo, despite its recent troubles, has $4 billion in cash. Google has $22 billion that it won't even share with investors, let alone you. Facebook may one day amass even more cash than either of them. They could never have made a profit without the data they collect about you. So where's your share?
Face it: To these companies, you are not even a human being. You are a "user" -- one of the ugliest, most dehumanizing scraps of jargon to gain currency in the Internet era. It connotes the consumption or manipulation of something valuable, perhaps even in an addictive way. But our "using" the Web is only half of the story -- maybe less than half. You, dear user, may use the Web, but at the end of the day, it is you who is really being used. You have become someone's instrument for profit. And the worst part is, you're not even getting paid.
Of course, everyone knows his or her behavior is tracked online. Some people go to great lengths to protect their privacy, but the rest of us just tolerate the snooping. And most Web sites are upfront about this practice, in a manner of speaking: They disclose it in foggy legal language tucked away in dense "terms of services" or EULAs (that is, end user licensing agreements -- there's that word again!). What they won't tell you is this: Exactly what data have they collected on you? What does it say about you? How much are the data worth?
The short answer: an awful lot.
To get a taste of what is collected, try this. If you haven't cleared your browser history for a while, open it up. Inside its search bar, type in the name of your preferred search engine ("Google search," "Yahoo search," or "Bing" should work.) I did this with Google, and the search terms that had accreted were surprisingly detailed. Keep in mind that it's the richness of this data that drives Google's profits, targeting ads with a precision few companies can match. As chief executive Eric Schmidt said recently, "Advertisers are willing to shell out a lot of money for this targeting."
Or just listen to Web executives when they gather at industry conferences. That's where they open up. Here is a Yahoo vice president gushing to investors last month about "the most exciting" thing that his site's users do:
"They leave a data footprint. They tell me what they are interested in. They tell me what kinds of things they are searching on. They tell me what kinds of articles they are reading. They tell me whether a user is interested in preparing for the tax season for next year. They tell me whether the user is going to be interested in a particular geography from a travel perspective. . . . All this wonderful data footprint, which has such high value."
Again, we all know in theory that our every comment and gestures are tracked online for the benefit of advertisers -- or we should. But think about how far it's gone. Imagine you were having a dinner party and some stranger walked in and wrote down every comment, recording each movement from you and your guests, then sold it. No one would put up with it in the real world. But that's exactly what Facebook is doing online.
It's not so much the intrusion on privacy -- a quaint concept in this age of do-it-yourself publishing, YouTube-spawned fame and reality-TV whoredom. The violation is more of an economic one. Publish a blog or set up a channel on YouTube, and Google will pay you ad revenue, after taking its own cut. They brag privately about how valuable our data are, but they won't share a cent of the riches they bring.
Web companies will argue that collecting personal data helps them afford to offer their services for free. This is true as far as it goes, which isn't very far. The biggest reason Web sites will never charge for search or social networks is that we'll all go somewhere else. What percentage of tweets, say, or YouTube videos would you actually pay to watch?
Usually when personal data are shared among companies, they're in an aggregate form, illuminating group behaviors and trends. In theory, this should return some benefits to the crowd in the same way collective votes in a democracy help shape policy. Instead, we just get a bunch of ads. The profits go to the executives and investors in the company or pile up in corporate coffers.
So: What if we all e-mailed these companies collecting our data with our own version a "terms of service" that read like this? "By collecting, storing, selling, trading, reselling or exploiting for any commercial purposes any information about me, your site agrees to pay me a licensing fee of $100 per month."
The first few times it happens, the companies will laugh. If it happens often enough, they will be annoyed. And then, maybe we will be heard as more than data.
Kevin Kelleher is a writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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A violation of international law
Between 14 July and 2 August 1969, the Indonesian government held what it called the ‘Act of Free Choice’ in West Papua. It gathered 1022 Papuan tribal representatives into eight locations – one for each region of West Papua: Merauke, Jayawijaya, Paniai, Fak-Fak, Sorong, Manokwari, Cenderawasih and Jayapura. Some of these Papuans had to walk three days to their designated location. Some had to leave behind their wives and children in the ‘care of the Indonesian government’. These 1022 Papuans were asked to choose between two alternatives, either to remain with Indonesia or to sever ties with Indonesia and become an independent state separate from Indonesia, like Papua New Guinea.
In each region the decision-making process was the same. The head of the West Irian provincial government informed the Papuan group that the peoples of West Papua had already expressed their desire not to be separated from Indonesia and that the right answer was for Papua to remain a part of Indonesia. The Indonesian Minister of Home Affairs informed them that this ‘Act of Free Choice’ would finally safeguard the unity of the Indonesian nation and there was no alternative but to ‘remain within the Republic of Indonesia’. The Papuans were not permitted to vote. They had to reach a decision through the Indonesian system of musyawarah (mutual deliberation) in which discussion continues until everybody agrees. All of this took place under the watchful gaze of the Chair of the West Irian Provincial House of Representatives, the Chief of the Indonesian Information Service, as well as a Brigadier-General in the Indonesian army. One by one each Papuan group declared in favour of remaining with Indonesia.
Ever since that time, Indonesia has represented this ‘Act of Free Choice’ as West Papua’s exercise of its right to self-determination. This is its justification for the integration of West Papua into the Republic of Indonesia.
Self-determination in international law
From its origins as a political principle championed by Lenin and then by Woodrow Wilson, self-determination has evolved into a fundamental human right and a rule of international law. In its 1960 ‘Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’, the UN General Assembly stated that ‘the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to world peace and cooperation’. Since then the principle of self-determination has attained quasi-constitutional status within the United Nations and has been reinforced by state practice throughout the world. As a result, millions of people have gained their freedom from the former colonial powers. Self-determination has been entrenched in treaty law and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The ‘Act of Free Choice’ was an egregious violation of West Papua’s legal right to self-determination
In early 2008, the chair of the UN special committee on decolonisation, who was also the UN representative for Indonesia, H.E. Mr R. M. Marty M Natalegawa (now Indonesia’s foreign minister), declared that ‘decolonisation remains an unfinished business of the United Nations. We must therefore continue to give decolonisation a high priority and seek effective ways to accelerate the process of decolonisation in the remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories’. If he is really serious, His Excellency need look no further than across the Afar Sea to West Papua.
The situation in 1969
In 1969, Indonesia did not have sovereignty over West Papua. It had exercised administration responsibilities over the territory under UN supervision since 1963, after assuming responsibilities from the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority, which had in turn taken over administration from the Netherlands, the original colonial power. Indonesia’s obligations towards West Papua were governed by two separate treaties. The first and more important was the UN Charter, Article 73 of which imposed on Indonesia a ‘sacred trust’ to bring West Papua to self-government. The second treaty was the ‘Agreement Concerning West New Guinea (West Irian)’ made on 15 August 1962 between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of Indonesia and commonly referred to as the New York Agreement. This treaty imposed on Indonesia an obligation, as the administering power, to hold an act of self-determination in West Papua in accordance with international practice.
In 1969 ‘international practice’ was well-established. Under Resolution 1541 (XV) ‘Principles which should guide Members in determining whether or not an obligation exists to transmit the information called for under Article 73e of the Charter’, an historic resolution passed by the UN General Assembly in 1960, there were two fundamental conditions that had to be met before a non-self-governing territory (such as West Papua) could be integrated into another state (such as Indonesia).
Legal commentators have been scathing about the vote ever since, dismissing it as an empty and formalistic exercise, a pseudo-choice and a betrayal of the principle of self-determination
Firstly, the territory should have already attained ‘an advanced stage of self-government with free political institutions’. This was necessary, to give its people ‘the capacity to make a responsible choice through informed and democratic processes’. Secondly, integration should only proceed once all the people of the territory, fully informed about the consequences, had expressed their wishes through ‘informed and democratic processes, impartially conducted and based on universal adult suffrage’. These requirements were set out in Principle IX of Resolution 1541 (XV).
No justification in law
Clearly, in the 1969 ‘Act of Free Choice’ these conditions were ignored. Legal commentators have been scathing about the vote ever since, dismissing it as an empty and formalistic exercise, a pseudo-choice and a betrayal of the principle of self-determination.
The ‘Act of Free Choice’ was an egregious violation of West Papua’s legal right to self-determination, a violation of the ‘sacred trust’ under Article 73 of the UN Charter and a breach of Indonesia’s treaty obligations under the UN Charter and the New York Agreement. It cannot justify Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua. The justification for such sovereignty, if it exists, must lie elsewhere in the legal rules governing the acquisition of sovereignty. Otherwise West Papua is a territory that is under alien domination – a status forbidden by international law. ii
Melinda Janki (mmjanki@yahoo.co.uk) is an international lawyer specialising in the environment and human rights, providing legal advice to conservation organisations and to aboriginal and tribal peoples in Asia, Africa and South America. She is also a founding member of International Lawyers for West Papua.
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West Papua 40 years on
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A Papuan man from the highlands of Papua: the voice of Papuans has long been ignored in the debate |
Last August, East Timor celebrated a decade since the United Nations vote which gave it independence from Indonesia. This year, too, many West Papuans have been remembering a UN sponsored vote, but many of them have been mourning how it denied them their independence. In 1969, in an ‘Act of Free Choice’ the UN gave West Papuans the choice between the same two options put before the Timorese in 1999: integration with Indonesia or full independence. But the conduct of the vote could hardly have been more different than that which took place 30 years later in East Timor.
Different histories
Most East Timorese and outside observers hailed the UN administration in East Timor and the conduct of the vote for self-determination as a success. Under threat of violence, but with the world watching, 78.5 percent of the Timorese voted for independence. The subsequent independence ended a bloody 24-year occupation by Indonesian forces.
For many West Papuans, the UN-sponsored vote legitimised the forced takeover by Indonesia in 1962 and the Indonesian annexation that continues today
Few people are aware that 30 years before East Timor, West Papua was the first ever UN administered territory and the first territory granted a UN sponsored vote. But for the Papuans, the process and outcome could not have been more different. The vote, conducted by Indonesia with UN supervision, is now widely acknowledged to have been a sham: only a handful of Papuans were allowed to participate, the few who could vote were forced to do so in public, in full view of Indonesian soldiers and without international observers, under threat of violence. Despite popular support for independence, the Papuans were coerced into voting for integration with Indonesia. Unsurprisingly, the Act of Free Choice is more popularly known to Papuans as the ‘Act of No Choice’. For many West Papuans, the UN-sponsored vote legitimised the forced takeover by Indonesia in 1962 and the Indonesian annexation that continues today.
Remembering 1969
The fortieth anniversary of the Act of Free Choice provides an excellent opportunity for Inside Indonesia to reflect upon the events of that time and their continuing relevance today. The contested histories arising from that fateful vote – in particular concerning Papua’s status as a part of Indonesia – are at the root of ongoing conflict in Papua. Yet, for many years there was little documentation or discussion of the events of 1969.
Inside Indonesia is thus pleased to present over coming weeks a series of articles that consider the Act of Free Choice, its legal consequences and the viewpoints of Indonesians and Papuans on the event and its implications for Papua’s future.
The fortieth anniversary of the Act of Free Choice provides an excellent opportunity for Inside Indonesia to reflect upon the events of that time and their continuing relevance today
International lawyer Melinda Janki writes about the legal consequences of the conduct of the Act of Free Choice. Since 1969, Indonesia has represented the vote as signifying West Papua’s exercise of its right to self-determination, offering it as justification for the territory’s incorporation into the Indonesian state. After setting out the requirements for the legitimate exercise of self-determination in international law, she shows that the Act of Free Choice fell far short of those standards. As a matter of international law, she argues, the Act cannot justify Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua.
Professor Pieter Drooglever, author of an independent study of the Act of Free Choice commissioned by the Dutch government in 2000, provides an overview of his findings about the vote and the political circumstances prevailing at the time, considering the roles of the Netherlands, Indonesia, the US and the UN. He explains how his study focuses on Papuan sentiments on the transfer and gives voice to those views, and he reflects on the intense political controversy caused by his study and the criticisms he received in Indonesia.
The series then presents Indonesian and Papuan views on the Act of Free Choice. Jusuf Wanandi of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta was part of the team that organised the Act of Free Choice and he presents his recollections of and reflections on that period. It is rare for persons involved in these historic events on the Indonesian side to present their views on them to an international audience, and we are very grateful to Mr Wanandi for doing so. Next, Muridan S. Widjojo of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences represents a liberal Indonesian view. While recognising that differing interpretations of the history of the Act are at the root of conflict in today’s Papua, he argues that it is feasible for the Indonesian government and the Papuan people to agree to pieces of historical truth that are acceptable to both sides. He asserts that this will build a foundation for repairing past mistakes and addressing Papuan grievances. Finally, an interview with Papuan leader in exile, Benny Wenda, explains Papuan views about what the vote and its 40 year anniversary mean to the Papuan people.
By offering Papuan, Indonesian and international perspectives on the Act of Free Choice, it is hoped that this series will aid a greater understanding of the conflicting perspectives on the history of Papuan integration in Indonesia, which will in turn assist Inside Indonesia readers to understand the current conflict in Papua and provide some background to the proposed negotiations between Jakarta and Papua over how to resolve that conflict. ii
Jennifer Robinson (jkr.robinson@gmail.com) is an Australian lawyer and Rhodes scholar in London who worked on the first case to be heard through the permanent Human Rights Courts in Indonesia, as well as the trial of then political prisoner, Benny Wenda in West Papua. She is an editor of Inside Indonesia and Secretary of International Lawyers for West Papua.
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