Iranian officials have denied such accusations. However, some may speculate that Tehran, which recently announced new advances in its nuclear program, dispatched its surrogates to the aforementioned cities to attack Israeli diplomats in retaliation for the assassination of several of Iran’s top atomic scientists.

Why Bangkok was the location for one of the planned attacks is an interesting question. Thailand has a significant Turkic population, and Bangkok specifically has many Iranian, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz immigrants living there.

The capital is a hub of international tourism which can serve as prime ground for radical extremists to exploit. Just last month, a Lebanese-Swedish man with alleged connections to Hezbollah was arrested there after police found more than 4000 kg of bomb making materials in the man’s home, including urea fertilizer and ammonium nitrate. The man has denied all charges and has instead accused the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, of planting the material in his home.

The New York Times reported this past January that American and Israeli diplomats had warned their citizens traveling to Thailand of a possible terror attack.

American government officials said Friday that they believed that Bangkok was a major hub for the Hezbollah-controlled cocaine money-laundering network that United States law enforcement agencies have been investigating. That investigation led to the closing of a major bank in Lebanon, which was said to have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit funds in a scheme that the American government says benefited Hezbollah.

The report goes on to say that some possible targets in Bangkok for terrorist attacks might be “tourist sites, synagogues and the Israeli Embassy.” Such intelligence may have been quite valuable in thwarting this alleged plot, but events of the past two months suggest a troubling phenomenon for Thailand. The government of Yingluck Shinawatra must demonstrate the ability to prevent international terror networks from setting up shop in its country, less Thailand find itself in the middle of a fight it has nothing to do with.

Photo: Agence-France Presse

I arrived in Phnom Penh late last Saturday. This is the second time I’ve come to Cambodia and the country, more specifically its capital city, is just as seedy as I recall from last time I was here in 2008.

There is no delicate way of tip toeing around the issue of sex workers and prostitution so let’s be clear: it is a reality everywhere in the world, but especially the Third World, and it is not going away. The best one can hope for is that it is regulated as best it can be in such a way that reduces instances of sex slavery and promotes proper sexual health.

Phnom Penh is notorious for its hostess bars which proliferate along Street 136 in the downtown Riverside area of the city. If you are not familiar with the term hostess bar, it is essentially a place where patrons can go and procure the services of the workers in the bar for the evening. Basically, you walk in and buy a drink. Once this transaction takes place, approximately 25 women make their way to where you are sitting. The patron selects one or more women with which he desires to spend time with for the evening. After buying her or them drinks, the patron has the option to pay a bar fine (usually $10) which releases the woman or women from the duties and responsibilities to the bar for the night. The patron is then free to negotiate a price for services outside the bar for the evening.

You may, however, just choose to utilize the bar for its more innocent purpose of inducing inebriation for the night. Indeed, I personally choose not to pay for sex, but that did not stop me from entering a hostess bar this past week in an attempt to bring my readers a true on-the-ground experience.

A common misconception is that these women (they are not girls) are forced into this lifestyle. False. These women have freely chosen to do what they do. It is the preferable choice to working the rice patties until they’re old and crippled. Some of the women were even attending classes at universities in the daytime. Another misnomer is that these women can never leave their jobs at the bar. False. Each woman I spoke to and who agreed to talk about the subject with me indicated that they could leave whenever they want. Most had no idea who even owned the bar. One might also have been led to believe that if they are chosen by a patron to leave with them that they cannot refuse. False. None of the women are forced to do anything with anyone. Safe sex is also highly prioritized which is reflected in Cambodia’s relatively low rate of HIV/AIDS when compared to other Global South countries.

Despite its reputation, Cambodia is not exactly the modern version of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sex workers do have some protection, if not rights. Does sex slavery and human trafficking still persist in parts of the country? Of course it does, and I do not mean to suggest that it does not or is not a problem. The topic of sex workers is always going to be a rough issue to digest for most people with a heart, but at least the increasing regulation represents a fairly progressive turn in Cambodia’s sex industry which neighboring states can hope to emulate.

Photo: AP

The return of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to Thailand appears to be a formality at this point; a question of when, not if. It was inevitable as soon as the polls closed in Thailand’s last election this past July which saw Thaksin’s reincarnated Pheu Thai party, headed by his sister Yingluck, emerge victorious on a tidal wave of support from the country’s rural hinterland. Thaksin has been in self-imposed exile after being overthrown in a coup in 2006. He was subsequently prosecuted and convicted in abstentia of corruption and graft and given a two year prison sentence.

This past December, Thailand’s Foreign Minister, Surapong Tovichakchaikul, announced that he had planned to issue a new passport for Thaksin. Such a move would allow the former head of government and telecommunications billionaire to return home and, in all likelihood, for him to see his prison sentence commuted by his sister.

The consequences of such a political power play could be significant. Thailand’s political system has been defined by coups and, more recently, protests, since the country’s transition to constitutional monarchy. Thaksin’s ouster in 2006 touched off a series of events which saw both supporters and opponents filling the streets at different times. Airports were shut down, the tourism industry was crippled, and over one hundred people were killed in violent clashes with the state’s security services.

Will Thaksin’s return spur similar events? The pro-monarch Yellow Shirts, members of the Bangkok elite, took a trouncing in the elections this past summer, but have consistently proven that they are strongly organized and willing to come out and demonstrate against pro-Thaksin forces. The opposition Democrat Party, for its part, has already called for Yingluck’s impeachment over the matter of her brother’s passport.

Her first six months in office have hardly been smooth sailing for Yingluck. There was of course her bungled response to the devastating floods to hit the region this past fall. Now the Democrats, recovering from their heavy electoral loss, are finding an old issue to rally behind in an attempt to sandbag Yingluck’s young government.

Thaksin remains a lightning rod for controversy in Thailand, and this looming showdown between opposing forces will be sure to make for great drama in Thailand in the months to follow.

It is the world’s largest Muslim country but remains for the most part secular. It is home to the eighteenth largest economy on the globe but more than sixteen percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day. Indonesia has long been considered the linchpin for Southeast Asia and, indeed, serves as a fascinating case study for which myriad domestic phenomena can be explored:  macroeconomic policy, the role of religion, and the nexus between political control and the military. In the seventh episode of the 2012 Great Decision series, produced by the Foreign Policy Association, Indonesia’s role in the region and the world, as well as its relationship with the United States, is examined in such frameworks. FPA readers can purchase a copy of the eight episode DVD and briefing book at the Great Decisions TV webpage.

The two panelists – Walter Lohman, the Director of The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, and Sadanand Dhume, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal – start with an historical overview beginning in the Cold War era to properly contextualize Indonesia’s modern trajectory.

Fearful of a communist wave which threatened to sweep Southeast Asia into Moscow’s orbit, U.S. policymakers in the Richard Nixon administration were quick to align themselves with Suharto, a zealous anti-communist Major General who had helped to overthrow the country’s previous military ruler in 1967. As Lohman posits, Washington’s support for Suharto was the lesser of two evils.

Never one to shy away from befriending some of the world's worst dictators, President Richard Nixon hosts Suharto in the Oval Office in 1969. Photo: ETAN

Despite a lack of political and civil rights under Suharto, Dhume argues that the dictator showed a knack for organization and, as a result, Indonesia underwent a period of extraordinary economic growth (abetted by millions of dollars in aid from Washington) while also enjoying some measure of political stability. Dhume is quite cavalier, however, in his dismissal of Suharto’s human rights record, saying only that there were “abuses of course,” before moving on to another point.

After the overthrow of Sukarno, the country’s previous autocrat, Suharto went on a rampage against his political opponents, especially Communists, which resulted in a bloodbath that rivaled Stalin’s endeavors in terms of sheer brutality. In December 1975, Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor, causing untold misery and close to 100,000 deaths over the course of the following quarter century. Moreover, the Suharto regime’s behavior in West Papua has been called genocide by the Yale Law School. Yes, there were abuses, of course.

Suharto’s downfall came against a backdrop of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Indonesia’s population could tolerate Suharto’s corruption and nepotism as long as the economy continued to hum along. However, the financial collapse which hit the country was not only an economic calamity but also served as a social and political awakening as well.

Indonesians go to the polls in 1999, the culmination of a remarkably quick transition to democracy. Photo: China Daily

The elections held in 1999 were, by all accounts, free and fair. Such a reality was met with surprise by most observers who have noted the chaotic nature of quick democratic transitions. One need only look to Egypt today to find an appropriate juxtaposition. With a litany of actors – opposition figures, military personnel, and remnants from the old regime — all clamoring for a voice at the table, one should expect a rocky road. In Indonesia, there were a fair share of bumps in that road, especially between 1998 and 2002, but the end product can be held up as a model to follow for other countries undergoing the trials and tribulations of democratization.

Indonesia’s transition from autocratic rule to democracy is almost as unique as the country itself. Consisting of more than 17,000 islands, the Great Decisions panel brings up the question as to how Indonesia has maintained its territorial integrity through the years. With the exceptions of East Timor, which gained independence in 2002, and the continued struggle by separatists in West Papua, Indonesia has retained sovereignty over its whole.

Part of that was due to the iron fisted rule of Suharto, but another part is due to the nation’s religious freedom. While 88 percent of the country is Muslim, there are major areas that are home to religious minorities. Bali, for example, is largely Hindu, while Sumatra is Christian. These groups have never been persecuted for their beliefs and that has gone a long way preventing the type of schisms that have popped up in other areas of the world which have divaricating degrees of religious tension. A good contemporary example in the news lately is Nigeria, where sectarian fighting in the country’s north threatens to tear the nation apart.

In terms of democratization and minority rights, Dhume suggests that Indonesia can be an example for the countries of the Arab Spring. This is so not just because of the mutual connection to Islam, but because Indonesia has proven that such transitions can be successfully implemented.

The United States, for its part, has maintained a very close partnership with Jakarta, even after he Suharto years. The two countries participate in various military exercises together, and have cooperated fully in the apprehension of several well-known members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant Islamic organization operating in Southeast Asia.  Washington values its relationship with countries like Indonesia because of the non-political role of Islam and because of its ability, in the 21^stcentury at least, to curtail the influence of the military in the political process.

President Barack Obama, seen here meeting with Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2010, spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. Photo: Corbis Images

President Barack Obama has a personal connection to Indonesia, having spent four years of his childhood living there. He has also made two state trips to the country as President in only his first term. Ties between the two countries appear to be very strong at the moment – a reality which Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has boasted of on numerous occasions – and with Indonesia’s GDP having increased sevenfold just over the last fifteen years, Jakarta is poised to be a regional powerbroker and a significant international player in the years to come.

What remains of the slum neighborhood of Borei Keila. Photo: Baltimore Sun

This article originally appeared at Dissent Magazine.

Approximately 70 people sat outside the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh last week in the sweltering heat because, quite frankly, they had nowhere else to go. They were members of some 300 families who were forcibly evicted from their homes in Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila district on January 3. Their homes were bulldozed to make way for corporate development.

Urban poverty has remained a constant in Cambodia’s capital city since it was repopulated following the madness of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. With little to no help from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, many of the country’s poor have no alternative but to rely on philanthropic institutions and Western NGOs to meet their basic human needs. Indeed, the Cambodian government has often prioritized corporate investment, accompanied with the expected kickbacks for the political elite, above the needs of its citizens.

This was the case in the Borei Keila tragedy. The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) provided a brief history of the situation in a recent press release that documents the government’s support for the construction company Phanimex, at the expense of the poor of Borei Keila:

In early 2003, a “land-sharing” arrangement was proposed for Borei Keila, which allowed the well-connected construction company, Phanimex, to develop part of the area for commercial purposes while providing housing to the residents on the remaining land. Phanimex was obligated to build 10 apartment buildings on two hectares of land for the villagers in return for obtaining ownership of an additional 2.6 hectares for commercial development.

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In April 2010, Phanimex unilaterally reneged on the agreement, however—with the approval of the government—and only constructed eight buildings. That left 300 Borei Keila families excluded from the original agreement—and still living in housing on the site. These were the homes that Phanimex representatives destroyed today.

Cambodian police took a pounding before firing tear gas back at the displaced residents. Photo: Khmer440.com

Many of the homes were bulldozed before its inhabitants could gather their personal effects from inside. On January 4, things turned violent. Several villagers began throwing rocks at the various individuals participating in the destruction, including police officers, security guards, and Phanimex workers. Police responded by firing tear gas at the protesters. The Phnom Penh Post reported that ten people were injured and ten more arrested.

This is not the first time the residents of Borei Keila have faced discrimination from the government and Phanimex. On June 18, 2009, twenty HIV-affected families living in the community were evicted and sent to a remote resettlement camp fifteen miles away. This action was so egregious that it prompted Human Rights Watch to write a letter to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen decrying the creation of a “de facto AIDS colony.” The families evicted were told they didn’t qualify for the free housing that Phanimex (falsely) promised it would build for displaced residents..

With little recourse from their own government, about seventy former inhabitants of Borei Keila decided to camp out in front of the U.S. Embassy last week, hoping to garner some international attention. The embassy, via its official Twitter page, issued a bland statement about the need to clarify property rights, and called for both sides to refrain from violence and to “exercise maximum restraint.”

It does not appear that the United States will do anything else. Since the Cambodian government has sided with Phanimex, the country’s civil society will likely have to provide for the families of Borei Keila, who are now, in effect, homeless, abandoned by their own government.

Photo Credit: Reuters

A Malaysian judge has ruled today that fiery opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is not guilty of sodomy charges brought forth by a former male aide. The verdict opens up the possibility for Ibrahim to stand in the next general election and challenge the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) party which has held political power in the country for the past five decades.

The ruling from the presiding High Court judge, Mohamad Zabidin Diah, was rather unexpected, and Ibrahim stated that he was “pleasantly shocked” by the verdict. This was not the first time Ibrahim has faced allegations of sexual misconduct. In 1998, he was convicted of a similar charge and spent six years in prison before the ruling was overturned. One year prior, Ibrahim was the Deputy Prime Minister and looked poised to be the next leader of the country. However, after campaigning on an anti-corruption platform, he was sacked by then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Ibrahim has consistently maintained that the subsequent sodomy charges levied against him were politically motivated.

After emerging from prison, Ibrahim put together a coalition of three opposition groups in the 2008 elections and scored the biggest political victory against BN in Malaysia’s democratic history. The BN lost five out of the nation’s sixteen states and also lost its traditional two thirds majority in Parliament. Not long after the elections, new charges appeared against Ibrahim, this time from his former male aide, Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

Exiting the courthouse today surrounded by his supporters, Ibrahim now seems poised to mount the strongest challenge yet to BN’s longtime control of Malaysia; the next elections are scheduled to be held no later than 2013. Ibrahim’s message is one of populism: in the wake of the Arab Spring and other myriad occupy movements across the globe this past year, Ibrahim is seen as the reformist candidate who has pledged to rollback several harsh laws which have served to curtail many political and civil rights within Malaysia. Moreover, he is seen as the voice of the country’s various ethnic minorities — such as Han Chinese and Indian — who have long been left out of the political process.

Photo Credit: The Diplomat

In the early 1960s, policymakers in Washington expressed fear that the Vietnam War would spill over into neighboring countries. In Laos, a country that had been declared neutral, the CIA’s Special Activities Division was tasked with subverting the rise of communist elements like Pathet Lao which were backed by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). This was accomplished by recruiting and arming the Hmong people, an indigenous group living for the most part in Laos, in an effort to destabilize the Lao communists.

The CIA’s campaigns of covert activity and subversion in hot spots of ideological tension during the Cold War have been well-documented. However, as the scars of battle have faded over time in some of the world’s other proxy arenas of the Cold War era, the effect of the “secret war” waged in Laos is still being felt by participants to the conflict nearly four decades after the United States left.

As soon as the U.S. pulled its troops out of Vietnam, the NVA overran the Kingdom of Laos and Pathet Lao took control of the country. Not only were casualties among the Hmong during hostilities very high – some estimates show that as many as 100,000 ethnic Hmong may have been killed – but, almost immediately, the Hmong people were singled out for retaliation. The subsequent persecution and killing of entire ethnic Hmong communities resulted in near-genocidal conditions and led to a mass exodus of Hmong people across the Mekong River into Thailand.

The Hmong refugee situation across the border remains a particularly delicate issue today. Refugees have been detained in squalid UN settlements which have been decried by human rights organizations.

Successive Thai governments have indicated that they do not want to deal with the Hmong refugees and have tried to coerce the Hmong exile community to return to Laos by mistreating them in the settlement camps. According to Human Rights Watch, “Thai authorities restricted all of the refugees to two small cells, deprived them of adequate light, separated parents from their children, denied them mosquito nets and clean clothing, and cut off access to clean water and proper sanitation facilities.”

When Hmong refugees refuse to return voluntarily to Laos, the Thai government has forcibly repatriated them, as was a case last week which garnered some mainstream attention. Ka Yang, a refuge-seeking Hmong who had already been offered asylum in a few Western countries, was involuntarily sent back to Laos. This, according to human rights advocates, is a violation of international law.

The UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees was drawn up before the Laotian Civil War but with groups such as the Hmong in mind. Article 31 of the convention states: “The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened.”

Neither Thailand nor Laos are parties to the convention. Therefore, these two countries are not officially in violation of international law. However, violations of minority rights should not be ignored or, worse, accentuated due to the negligence of governments where indigenous groups like the Hmong have sought sanctuary. There should be a moral responsibility to look after such refugees and, so far, Thailand has not lived up to that standard.

Image Credit: The Nation

Long live His Majesty King Bhumibol!

I felt that this post is going to need such a qualifier. I previously lived in Thailand in 2008 as a volunteer worker with an NGO. I love Thailand: the people, the culture, the food. I hope to return there one day, and it would not do me any good to be deported or, worse, arrested and sent to prison for saying something bad about the Thai monarchy. So I will say it again: long live His Majesty King Bhumibol!

Despite being a constitutional monarchy since 1932, the Thai Royal Family still holds a prominent spot in the country’s political affairs. The monarchy is nothing more than a figurehead at this point, but it has often intervened during periods of political instability – such as the country’s myriad military coups – to provide a mediating voice for the nation’s actors to resolve their differences.

I have argued in the past that the monarchy’s importance was greatly reduced during the “Red Shirt” street protests which rocked the country in 2010 in which more than 100 people were killed. His Royal Highness, perhaps weakened by old age, did not comment much on the situation and, when he did, was largely ignored by everyone.

The King is beloved by virtually all of his subjects due to his overwhelming benevolence and generosity. However, when I lived in Thailand, the resident director of the organization I was working for warned me and the other volunteers never to say anything negative about the monarchy. This is because Thailand has some of the world’s harshest criminal sentences for violating the country’s lèse majesté laws.

For example, my fellow volunteers and I were told that should a situation arise where the wind blows a paper note of money out of your hand, do not attempt to stop it from blowing away by stepping on it with your foot. The Thai baht bills have a picture of His Majesty on the front, and stepping on it with your foot is considered so disrespectful that it can result in the offender spending several years in prison.

Thailand’s lèse majesté laws have returned to public attention in 2011 with two high profile cases. In May, a Thai-American citizen was arrested after he posted a link on his blog to a book which was critical of the monarchy. The man was sentenced to 30 months in prison. The incident earned a sharp rebuke from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.

Then, in November, a 61-year old grandfather was given 20 years for a series of controversial text messages that he had sent the previous year. The man, Ampon Tangnoppakul also known as “Akong” (Thai for Grandpa), became the center of an online campaign organized by Thai journalists and human rights advocates to pressure the monarchy to pardon the elderly and sick man.

King Bhumibol, for his part, has called for more criticism and usually does issue clemency for law violators; it is important to note that the Thai government, not the monarchy, is responsible for bringing charges of lèse majesté up against individuals.

With the abolition of absolute monarchies, lèse majesté laws would seem to fall under the archaic category. However, politicians in Thailand looking to gain public favor by appealing to the sanctity of the monarch have politicized the issue to such a degree that now the world bears witness to outrageous arrests and sentences to people like Akong. Respect for local laws, rules and traditions are an important aspect of cross cultural learning. However, it should not come at the expense of freedom of speech, a basic civil human right in healthy democracies.

There has been a lot of talk of China’s potential hegemony. It is clearly a state whose influence in the international arena is increasing: its economy continues to grow at an impressive rate which has consequently allowed it to improve and expand its military capacity. As a rising international power in the 21st century, it is interesting to discern whether China’s ascension to global supremacy will result in a more respectful nature of its neighbors and a commitment to cooperation or if it will resort to taking a hard line approach.

China’s military arsenal gives it a relative advantage over many of its Southeast Asian neighbors. Beijing has rapidly acquired and produced naval warships, has expanded development of its intelligence gathering techniques, and has held joint military exercises with fellow nuclear powers Pakistan and India. It is also trying to project a “more robust” military presence in the South China Sea — site of an ongoing territorial dispute — enabling China’s navy to conduct better surveillance, enforce strategic blockades, and control the high level of sea traffic which passes through the area, according to a U.S. Department of Defense report produced earlier this year.

However, rather than resort to military measures to aggressively halt the conflict in the Spratly Islands, China has shown remarkable restraint. In July 2011, China and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states began plans to implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, an agreement signed by the members back in 2002 but lacking any real bite. Article five of the declaration suggests several ways “in the spirit of cooperation and understanding, to build trust and confidence between and among” the parties.

a. holding dialogues and exchange of views as appropriate between their defense and military officials;

b. ensuring just and humane treatment of all persons who are either in danger or in distress;

c. notifying, on a voluntary basis, other Parties concerned of any impending joint/combined  military exercise; and

d. exchanging, on a voluntary basis, relevant information.

The declaration discourages unilateral action as well as attempts to resort to military means to resolve the dispute.It splits the sea into disputed and non-disputed areas, calling for the former to be demilitarized and subject to joint patrols and usage.  Building upon that minor success, China and Vietnam signed a six-point agreement in October 2011 which sought to end the maritime dispute and make the region a zone “of peace, friendship and cooperation.”

On monetary matters, China and Southeast Asia’s economic relationship is mutual. China’s incredible pace of industrialization has given Beijing the ability to manufacture scores of cheap goods, resulting in exceptional export numbers. Furthermore, the market for Chinese goods is particularly helped in Southeast Asia by the creation of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA), which has resulted in greater integration between Beijing and ASEAN member states which can export the essential raw materials needed for industrial manufacturing in China. ACFTA went into effect on January 1^st, 2010 and is the largest free trade area in the world in terms of population. The agreement reduces 90 per cent of tariffs on imports and encourages the transnational exchange of goods and services with a minimum of regulation.

Moreover, Beijing’s decision to join the World trade Organization (WTO) in November 2001 has not harmed the ASEAN member states’ economic prosperity but in fact has strengthened it. Jose Tongzon has studied the effect China’s liberalization has had on the economic prospects of Southeast Asia and, despite initial apprehensions, his research shows that there have been net benefits and absolute gains realized by both China and ASEAN members.

In sum, it is my contention that China has excellent potential as a regional and, eventually, as a global hegemon because of its ability to pursue a multi-track approach to issues of vital interest, its profitable economic relationship with the nations of Southeast Asia, and its propensity to use soft power as a way of spreading its influence.

Indonesia was granted independence from the Netherlands in 1949, but the Dutch maintained control over West New Guinea. US-sponsored mediation between the former colonizer and colonized led to Indonesia assuming full control of the region by the end of 1962 on the condition that Jakarta would allow a local vote on the issue of self-determination under United Nations supervision. What followed was a decade long crackdown on any manifestations of political opposition and dissent by Suharto. The “Act of Free Choice,” held under dubious conditions in 1969, in which Jakarta handpicked elders of the Papuan community to agree to become part of Indonesia, was supported and recognized by the West and the UN. The “community elders” have been widely quoted since then that they were forced to vote at gunpoint to be part of Indonesia.

Indonesia’s crimes in Timor-Leste during the Cold War era until the end of the 20th century are well documented. But Indonesia’s behavior in West Papua over the past half century has been underreported in mainstream news outlets. During this timeline, approximately 100,000 Papuans were killed; almost ten percent of the population. The Yale Law School has labeled it genocide. Evidence of Indonesia’s repression is revealed in the exploitation of West Papua’s land and resources, as well as scores of accounts of rape, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

The separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM) was set up in the mid-1960s in response and began waging a guerrilla struggle against the Indonesian military. The erosion of Papuan culture and tradition was the raison d’etre for leaders of the movement, and an armed struggle has persisted on and off in the decades since. In the 1980s, Jakarta launched Operation Clean Sweep, which targeted family members of OPM fighters in an effort to defeat the movement. Electric shocks, public rapes, and death by means of bayonets were just some of the methods employed by Indonesian soldiers.

In Jakarta’s attempt to exploit the region’s wealth of gold, copper and timber, West Papuan villagers were routinely uprooted from their homes without any compensation and without the required labor skills to survive such a transition. Forced labor of many indigenous tribes in West Papua was also common practice; resistance was typically met with torture. Moreover, West Papua has long been a victim of socioeconomic neglect: access to education is minimal, 41.8% of the population live below the poverty line, and the prevalence of HIV/AIDS has exploded.

Today, it is a crime to fly the “Morning Star” flag, as the world found out through the infamous incarceration of activist Yusak Pakage, a prisoner of conscience according to leading human rights groups. The OPM have no plans to abandon the ceremony on the 50th anniversary of National Flag day on the first of December, 2011. Rallies and demonstrations took place in West Papua, and Jakarta responded by directing additional security service personnel to the region.

West Papua was given special autonomy status in 2001, but human rights abuses, committed by Indonesian paramilitary forces, persist to this day. The West has gradually begun to apply additional pressure on Jakarta to ease its treatment of civilians in West Papua, but it has not nearly matched the effort that observes have seen exerted on governments in other, well-publicized areas of the world.

Indonesia needs the West as much as the West needs Indonesia. It is a complex area of US foreign policy, but the success of such symbiotic relationships is predicated on transparent dialogue and communication between the two parties. The 50th anniversary of National Flag Day should be used by Washington and other Western governments as a way of highlighting the situation of the West Papuans so as to bring a certain level of justice to this continued struggle, as well as an attempt to modify Jakarta’s Papuan policy even further.

Summary of 2011

One of the biggest stories of the summer was the election of Yingluck Shinawatra as the first female Prime Minister of Thailand. Her election capped a remarkable comeback for her Pheu Thai party which, under a previous incarnation, saw its leader, and Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin, deposed in a coup no more than five years ago. Her victory was part of a much broader story about class struggle in Thailand, which had been underscored by street protests staged by supporters of both the Shinawatra’s and the opposition since Thaksin’s overthrow in 2006.

Events in the South China Sea seemed to vindicate scholar Robert Kaplan’s postulation that the area would be “the future of conflict.” The dispute over the Spratly Islands, claimed by six countries, intensified most acutely between China and Vietnam, who have an afflictive history of hostility with one another over territorial spats. Tensions appear to be ameliorating thanks in part to ASEAN’s intervention and calls for peace, but the South China Sea is one of the world’s hottest flashpoints at the moment and is worth keeping an eye on.

2011 is concluding on a sad and tragic note as the worst flooding in years has inundated the region from the Philippines all the way to Bangkok. Hundreds have died, thousands have been forced to flee or remain trapped in isolated areas, farm land has been destroyed, and livelihoods have been lost.

Most Unexpected Event

The ruling military junta in Myanmar established a civilian political party, predictably won elections held at the end of 2010 — elections which were boycotted by the main opposition — but then made a previously inconceivable overture to reformers by releasing 100 political prisoners. There are now plans to release hundreds more over the coming weeks and months.

Just recently, President Barack Obama announced that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Myanmar, the first American official to do so in five decades. This comes on the heels of a pronouncement by the country’s democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, that her political party, the National League for Democracy, will re-register and stand in upcoming by-elections. In a recent piece, I posited that perhaps Burma was finally opening up to the world in the wake of pro-democracy movements all around the globe.

Person/Group of the Year

My group of the year for 2011 is the Red Shirts of Thailand, organized as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship. The Red Shirts draw their base support from the poor, rural regions of the country, a demographic which for decades had been marginalized and shut out of the political process by the elites of Thailand. When populist Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was overthrown in 2006, eventually being replaced by the opposition Democrat Party in December 2008, the Red Shirts took to the streets in protest. Despite several harsh crackdowns in which more than one hundred people were killed, the Red Shirts resolve never wavered. In July 2011, their favored candidate, Yingluck Shinawatra, was elected Prime Minister. Her resounding electoral victory was a testament to the unyielding pertinacity of the Red Shirt movement, which is sure to be studied and duplicated in other countries of the Global South. Here is a brief audio voice over I produced for the Foreign Policy Association’s Expert Minute series over the summer on the issue.

Forecast for 2012

Will Yingluck be able to politically survive her bungling of the flood response? She rose to the Premiership on a tidal wave of support from the poor, rural majority. Yet she allowed large swaths of farmland to be flooded in order to spare Bangkok, which was inevitably flooded anyway. It will be interesting if she pays a significant price for that in terms of political capital.

Will the latest Khmer Rouge tribunals finally bring closure to the darkest chapter in Cambodia’s history? The tribunal’s commencement has been hit by several delays due in large part to the current Cambodian government’s meddling. Ascertaining guilt is not an issue; we know what those on trial have done. But Prime Minister Hun Sen is a former Khmer Rouge cadre himself, now reformed, and has publicly questioned the need for the trials to go forward. The start of Case 002 has just begun in the last few days at the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts in Cambodia (ECCC), and already tales of horror are being recounted by the prosecution team in vivid details. On trial are brother Number Two Nuon Chea, one-time head of state Khieu Samphan, and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary.

There are several flashpoints to take note of as well. The South China Sea is one, but also worth following are two Islamic insurgencies taking place in the southern Philippines and southern Thailand.

There are many things to look forward to in Southeast Asia in 2012, I look forward to continue writing about them for FPB. Thanks for reading!

If I was the political leader of an autocratic nation, I might have begun to hedge my bets against my own domestic uprising, perhaps offering overtures, however small or insignificant, as a means of placating this restless movement.

Could the government of Myanmar be the answer to this question?

Over the past few weeks, the government of President Thein Sein has allowed the release of up to 100 political prisoners and plans to release more in due course. Moreover, media restrictions have been lifted (the BBC broadcasted a live segment recently with the full knowledge of the Burmese government), and trade unions will be allowed to form and workers to strike, according to a new law passed in October.

Such conciliatory efforts have resulted in opposition leader and Burma’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to announce that her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), may plan to re-register and may even participate in upcoming by-elections, pending the outcome of an NLD meeting on November 17th at which the party’s platform will likely be decided.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was impressed enough with the gradual changes in the country to award the chair of the regional organization to Myanmar for 2014. Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told the BBC that the move, decided unanimously by ASEAN members, will be a way to encourage Myanmar to continue its liberalization. “We’re trying to ensure the process of change continues,” he said.

It is another example of the “Asian Way,” that inimitable operational code so uniquely Asian and which also serves as a diplomatic tool and conflict resolution mechanism for the region’s myriad actors. In other areas of the world, Myanmar’s checkered history may well have been used against it: routinely terrorizing its own citizens, violently quelling protests, and a virtual consensus of condemnation amongst the international community.

But as Mr. Natalegawa said, “it’s not about the past.” Many human rights advocates have given their lives for their cause in Burma. However, if their efforts served to make the current government of Myanmar not only think twice about sponsoring another crackdown – especially in the wake of the large pro-democracy protests occurring throughout the world – but by also advancing Burma’s own democracy movement, then their sacrifices were surely worth it.

That said, the photographs taken recently by Spanish photojournalist Omar Havana at a Cambodian trash dump moved me so much that I felt compelled to share it with the FPA readership. I am not going to post all of the photos here, but they can be accessed at the website of Australia’s ABC News. Some of the photos are very upsetting, even if you are a seasoned traveler of the developing world and have bore witness to scenes of devastating poverty before.

However, you can get a sampling of what is to be expected below. These pictures were captured at a garbage dump a short drive away from Siem Reap, home of the Angkor Wat temple complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site and major tourist attraction.

A young boy shows off a bag of blood that he has found in the dump as his meal for the day.

A woman collects water.

Fresh waste arriving.

This will be someone's food for the day.

Life at the dump.

Last month Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed, in an article for the Foreign Policy Magazine, ‘America’s Pacific Century’! This week, President Obama will be laying the foundation through a series of multilateral meetings involving Pacific Rim countries. He will start with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Hawaii (Nov 12th-13th), and continue at the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Bali, Indonesia (Nov 17th-19th).

At the margins of both these world leader gatherings, President Obama will be pushing hard for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a little-known but fairly liberal trade grouping which could put real pressure on China to finally change its mercantilist trade policies and undervalued currency.

Currently, the TPP includes only 4 small economies: Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. During the past couple of years, Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam, and the U.S. have been negotiating entry into the group. Now Japan has also announced that it will participate in the negotiations to form what, at least in theory, has come to be perceived as the “gold standard” for trade agreements that would go further than any existing arrangement.

All these Asian summits officially present an excellent opportunity for President Obama to take his effort for economic growth and job creation internationally. Two-way trade between the U.S. and the 8 TPP nations totaled $171 billion in 2010, compared with $457 billion with China, $181 billion with Japan and $88 billion with South Korea, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Overall, the APEC economies account for half of global output, and represent the main target of the president’s efforts to double U.S. exports in the near future.

Unofficially however, U.S. efforts within APEC and more specifically the nature and composition of the TPP are designed to confront China on its mercantilist trade policies – especially the manipulation of its currency.

MCT 2011. [Papua New Guinea Current account balance is in millions of $US].

What Is So Special About The TPP

According to Iwan Azis, head of the Asian Development Bank’s regional integration office (quoted in an interview by the FT), the agreement is intended to deal with what he calls “behind the border” issues. These include areas of what could be deemed domestic policy which go beyond the normal scope of trade agreements.

Currently, almost everything other then labor mobility is up for liberalization through the TPP, making it one of the most comprehensive free-trade treaties yet conceived. Beyond the ambitious goal of eliminate all tariffs over 10 years, the most significant areas that are currently negotiated include: government procurement, rules governing the conduct of state-owned enterprises, and intellectual property standards.

The TPP promises something truly groundbreaking: persuading Asian governments to accept new rules on the role of state-owned enterprises, the cornerstone of Asian-style capitalism. State-owned enterprises often benefit from cheap financing or government protection. China, in particular, is often criticized for seeking to ensure the success of national champions to the detriment of free trade and honest competition.

According to Bloomberg, Asian governments operate in many markets through state-owned companies with large bundles of cash reserves at their disposal. They exist both to make a profit and to build state power. Ten years ago, emerging countries added $100 billion a year combined to their reserves. In 2009, they took in $1.6 trillion. Sovereign wealth funds now control 12% of investment worldwide, according to the U.S. State Department. Sometimes, state-owned enterprises work in secrecy and without accountability to shareholders, independent boards and regulators. The lack of transparency puts U.S. companies at a disadvantage.

On the other hand, China undervalues its currency, by pegging the renminbi (RMB) to the dollar at an artificially low level. This, along with other subsidies and mercantilist trade policies, keeps Chinese exports cheap, and thus more attractive to consumers in the U.S. and Europe. Because China is the manufacturing hub for South-East Asia, where most assembling and export happens, China’s artificially undervalued currency is also impacting trade throughout the region.

As a result, other regional countries have pegged their currency to the RMB (Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and of course Hong Kong) in order to compete with Chinese exports, but also to align their production pricing with China. More recently, Japan has been forced to intervene in the foreign currency markets 4 times during the past 14 months, in order to lower the value of the yen and thus facilitate greater exports for its manufacturing sector.

This is where the TPP can provide leverage for the U.S. The U.S. has not been able to convince China to change its trade and currency policies. Now it must try to put pressure on the other Pacific Rim countries to embrace the U.S. agenda. The timing could not be more opportune.

The U.S. Strategy So Far

Over the years, high on the list of U.S. international trade priorities has been getting commitments from China to enact more flexible currency rate standards to help balance trade; respect intellectual property rights; and limit the role of state-owned enterprises in the market. The TPP reads like the U.S. trade agenda with respect to China, now being formalized with some of the most important economies of the region.

So far, China has not been very responsive to U.S. demands for currency appreciation and more domestic (Chinese) consumption. In last year’s APEC meeting, President Obama directly pressed China over its massive exports aided by a cheap RMB, and urged countries with large trade surpluses (like China, Japan, and S. Korea) to shift away from their unhealthy dependence on exports and take steps to boost domestic demand. President Obama’s pleas fell on deaf ears (both then and now) as the Chinese leader insisted (as always) that China will make reforms at its own pace.

Unfortunately, singling out China as the worst offender (in mercantilist trade policies) has not worked so far as a strategy. On the other hand, the U.S. has greater leverage and a much different/better relationship with most of the other Asian member of APEC. Therefore, the U.S. should push the partnership to curb currency manipulation, Internet censorship, forced intellectual-property sharing and coerced joint ventures with state-owned companies. If the rest of Asia moves closer to the U.S. model, that could pressure China to do the same. Experts hope that creating a free-trade block of sufficient mass will put pressure on China to join and thus open and liberalize more of its economy. The idea is for the TPP to be a structure on to which other nations, including possibly South Korea, and eventually even China, could be eventually integrated.

Furthermore, China’s efforts to internationalize the RMB make it all that more pressing to confront them on their undervalued currency. (see, China’s Efforts to Internationalize its Currency) Although it is the most appropriate forum, doing this through APEC will not be easy. China has gotten very good at manipulating international organizations and getting what it wants out of them.

Although active at the technical level, China has not been helpful at the leader’s level with APEC’s efforts to achieve anything even remotely approaching regional free trade. While not wanting to be seen as obstructionist, China can nevertheless be expected to effectively exploit APEC’s inherent inability to act decisively in order to help ensure that the organization never fully achieves any meaningful trade reform. APEC will need strong leadership from the U.S. and President Obama to both address the trade distorting nature of China’s currency policy and strengthen regional free trade.

The ‘Elephant’ in Room – China

David Gordon of the Eurasia Group recently argued that China has overplayed its hand in Asia, and its rapid growth and aggressive posturing (both economic and military) “is inadvertently driving Asian states to build closer economic and strategic ties with the U.S. and each other.” Over the past 18 months China has taken a very an aggressive tone towards territorial disputes in the South China Sea and elsewhere. Mr. Gordon further argues that Beijing has miscalculated its ability to cater to nationalist feelings domestically without alarming its neighbors, and is now (inadvertently) driving Asian nations to build closer economic and strategic ties with the U.S. and each other.

And you know that the Chinese leadership is concerned when commentary in the Chinese press often casts the TPP as an aggressive U.S.-led ploy to squeeze China out of SE Asia. Of course this is exactly what China did back in 2005, with the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. Covering more than 1.8 billion people, this FTA is the world’s largest in terms of population; and amounting to a combined $6 trillion in GDP, the third largest after the EU and NAFTA. The obvious advantage was that such an approach removed the US – and its oftentimes confrontational agenda – from the equation and it undermined U.S. economic linkages in the region. Now the U.S. is poised to formally accede to East Asia Summit (the ASEAN+3) next week, a move that the other SE Asian nations welcome, as they hope that the U.S. could provide a counterweight to China in the region.

Conclusion

Undersecretary of State Robert Hormats was recently quoted as saying: “There’s competition between the American economic model and the more state-centered economic model of China and other countries.” Many have been arguing for a serious debate on the damaging role of state capitalism on the global economy, and the ideological differences between the U.S./EU rule based global economy and SE Asia’s mercantilist trade practices.

Although there is a deeply pragmatic driving force behind the TPP, undoubtedly, it also has an element of seeking to wrest back global trade for nations perceived to play by the rules. The Obama administration might have finally found a trade strategy to deal with China’s undervalued currency and mercantilist economic policies.

Some Sources –

Trans-Pacific Trade Deal Could Revolutionize Commerce: View by the Editors of Bloomberg BuisnessWeek. (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-11/trans-pacific-trade-deal-could-revolutionize-commerce-view.html)

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Far-reaching agreement could form powerful new trade bloc, By David Pilling. (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/47dd4d14-06cc-11e1-90de-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1dKBjz1mp)

America’s Pacific Century, By Hillary Clinton. (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century)

Obama heads to Asia focused on China’s power, by David Nakamura and William Wan. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/obama-heads-to-asia-with-sharp-focus-on-chinas-growing-power/2011/11/10/gIQAOsQkBN_story.html)

A trade opportunity Washington shouldn’t pass up, by David Gordon. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-trade-opportunity-washington-shouldnt-pass-up/2011/11/10/gIQA1K3t9M_story.html)

Ever since his time as a member in the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (first as National Security Advisor for the former and later as Secretary of State for both), Kissinger has felt heat from scores of progressive critics who blame him for some of America’s most nefarious policies implemented during the Cold War.

In Southeast Asia, there are several examples of covert United States military action, which Kissinger oversaw and which lend credence to his critics’ accusations. Between March 1969 and May 1970, the U.S. engaged in aerial bombing campaigns in both Cambodia and Laos. Codenamed “Operation Menu,” the bombings were originally rationalized as an extension of hostilities against Northern Vietnamese troops operating along the borders with these two countries. However, the mission included bombing raids which were indiscriminate by nature, and thousands of civilians lost their lives.

On December 9, 1970, US President Richard Nixon telephoned his national-security adviser, Henry Kissinger, to discuss the ongoing bombing of Cambodia. This sideshow to the war in Vietnam, begun in 1965 under the Johnson administration, had already seen 475,515 tons of ordnance dropped on Cambodia, which had been a neutral kingdom until nine months before the phone call, when pro-US General Lon Nol seized power. The first intense series of bombings, the Menu campaign on targets in Cambodia’s border areas — labelled Breakfast, Lunch, Supper, Dinner, Dessert, and Snack by American commanders — had concluded in May, shortly after the coup.

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Nixon was facing growing congressional opposition to his Indochina policy. A joint US–South Vietnam ground invasion of Cambodia in May and June of 1970 had failed to root out Vietnamese Communists, and Nixon now wanted to covertly escalate the air attacks, which were aimed at destroying the mobile headquarters of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army (vc/nva) in the Cambodian jungle. After telling Kissinger that the US Air Force was being unimaginative, Nixon demanded more bombing, deeper into the country: “They have got to go in there and I mean really go in…I want everything that can fly to go in there and crack the hell out of them. There is no limitation on mileage and there is no limitation on budget. Is that clear?”

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Five minutes after his conversation with Nixon ended, Kissinger called General Alexander Haig to relay the new orders from the president: “He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything. It’s an order, it’s to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?” The response from Haig, barely audible on tape, sounds like laughter.

U.S. support of Suharto, Indonesia’s long-ruling dictator is well-chronicled. After the overthrow of Sukarno, the country’s previous autocrat, Suharto went on a rampage against his political opponents from across the spectrum – but especially communists. The resulting bloodbath rivals Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the Soviet purges under Stalin in terms of sheer brutality. In December 1975, Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor causing untold misery and close to 100,000 deaths over the course of the following quarter century.

In both instances in Indonesia, the U.S., under Kissinger’s supervision, financially supported and armed the Indonesian government and military, which allowed it to commit such heinous actions. Humiliated after the war in Vietnam, and still fearful of communism’s encroachment throughout the developing world, Kissinger justified Washington’s support for Suharto’s crimes by pontificating on the need for American allies in the world, irrespective of their human rights record.

Progressive political action groups, such as the East Timor Action Network and CodePink, have hounded Kissinger for years by protesting outside of venues where he has given lectures while calling for his arrest for war crimes. At least half a dozen groups are planning to demonstrate outside of this latest appearance. There are segments of American civil society that will attempt to hold its leaders accountable, even when their actions took place decades ago in places in the world more likely to be forgotten than remembered. Victims of the dissolute actions the U.S. undertook under Kissinger’s direction can at least take solace in that.