CANBERRA, LELEMUKU.COM - Samoa’s leader knows the nation of some 200,000 people looms small on the world map, yet it disconcerted her that they’d been lumped into a region conjured up by American and Japanese officials – the “Indo-Pacific,” which stretches from the Indian Ocean to the U.S. West Coast.

The surreal artifice of this was one of the truth bombs dropped by Fiame Naomi Mataafa, Samoa’s prime minister, during a plain-talking speech and conversation at a Lowy Institute event in Canberra, the Australian capital, on Monday.

“Everyone talks to us about the ‘Indo-Pacific’ and I think there’s an assumption there that we know what they’re talking about, and actually we don’t. So we’re having to inform ourselves as best we can,” Fiame said.

“Given that we occupy a very large space of one of those oceans one might have thought that having some input from the Pacific islands might have been a good idea,” she said.

Fiame appeared at the think-tank’s event a week to the day that the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom announced details of the plan for the Australians to acquire nuclear-powered submarines to help America police the Indo-Pacific super region.

The so-called AUKUS security pact between Canberra, Washington and London is one of several moving parts grouped under the “Indo-Pacific,” the U.S. strategic concept of the moment that analysts say aims to contain China.

After several decades of rapid growth, the Asian superpower’s economy rivals the United States in size and it is rapidly building up its military arsenal.

Australia’s ambition to have its own nuclear-propelled submarines was first announced in late 2021 and provoked anxiety among some countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Under the plans announced last week, Australia will buy up to five U.S. nuclear submarines from early next decade and also build its own using British and American technology.

Pacific island countries reacted to the latest details with a mixture of support, resignation and disquiet, reflecting diverse interests in the vast ocean region.

A spokesman for David Panuelo, president of the Federated States of Micronesia, said the U.S.-allied north Pacific country “trusts that AUKUS is in the region's security interests and trusts that Australia will continue to adhere to regional and international best practices on nuclear non-proliferation.”

The comments from Fiame, who also said she understood Australia’s reasons for acquiring nuclear submarines, underline the challenges for Pacific island nations at a time when their region is increasingly a focal point of the U.S.-China rivalry.

Some nations have benefited from China’s interest in the Pacific through aid and infrastructure, and they also hope to gain from renewed U.S. attention. At the same time, they are also being swept up by the agendas of large powers.

“We are faced with the perplexities of varying versions of the Indo-Pacific strategies,” said Fiame, Samoa’s first female prime minister.

“The underlying lack of understanding of the Pacific countries of how and when the two large ocean spaces morphed into the Indo-Pacific and the rationale behind the concept” is in part the fault of development partners, she said, referring to countries such as Australia, Japan, the United States and New Zealand.

In the Pacific, she added, “we feel our partners have fallen short of acknowledging the integrity of Pacific leadership and the responsibility they carry for every decision made as a collective and individually.”

According to the Observer Research Foundation, a think-tank based in New Delhi, the Indo-Pacific as a concept has its origins with a German scholar in the 1920s and was given prominence in recent times by a Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, in a 2007 speech to India’s parliament.

The phrase “free and open Indo-Pacific” then began to appear in Japanese government statements and, by late last decade, was moving to the center of U.S. foreign policy.

The widespread adoption of the concept of a super region, the foundation said in a 2021 article, reflects the shift in global power to east from west. Its “seeming lack of rationality” shows that regional boundaries reflect political interests rather than geography or logic, the foundation said.

Worries about nukes

Since the 2021 announcement of AUKUS, officials from Australia, the United Kingdom and United States have worked to allay anxiety about the nuclear subs deal including emphasizing the submarines will not pack nuclear weapons.

A Pacific nation official, who did not want to be identified, told BenarNews that their government had received six face-to-face briefings about AUKUS as well as formal diplomatic communications.

Eleven Pacific island nations, as well as Australia and New Zealand, are signatories to the 1986 Rarotonga Treaty, which declared the South Pacific to be a nuclear-free zone.

The treaty was partly a response to the legacy of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. Between 1946 and 1966, the United States, France and the United Kingdom carried out some 300 nuclear detonations in the Pacific.

The foreign minister of Tuvalu, a group of low-lying atolls that are home to 12,000 people, directly criticized the AUKUS plan.

“The 2011 Fukushima disaster highlighted the danger of nuclear power to human health and the environment,” Foreign Minister Simon Kofe said on Twitter.

“As we discuss nuclear-powered submarines in the Pacific, we must also address concerns about increased militarization of the region,” he said in his tweet. It was responding directly to Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong by encapsulating her own tweet applauding the nuclear subs agreement.

Justin Tkatchenko, Papua New Guinea’s minister of foreign affairs, did not directly comment on AUKUS when asked about the three-nation submarine deal at a press conference earlier this week.

Instead, he pointed out that Papua New Guinea was working toward ratifying the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

“It’s now in NEC [National Executive Council] for final approval to go to the floor of parliament to be ratified so that Papua New Guinea is totally against any nuclear weapon in PNG or in the Pacific region,” he said. (Stephen Wright | BenarNews)

JAKARTA, LELEMUKU.COM - Indonesia’s military said Wednesday it was still searching for a New Zealand pilot who rebels took hostage in Papua after setting fire to his plane a day earlier, but that the five passengers they let go were safe.

The military also said it had safely evacuated from Paro, a district in Nduga regency, 15 workers who were building a health clinic but whom separatist rebels had threatened to kill.

“The joint [military-police] task force is still searching,” a local military commander, Brig. Gen. Juinta Omboh Sembiring, said about Philip Merthens, the 37-year-old pilot working for regional carrier Susi Air.

National police chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo said the five passengers on the plane had been brought to safety with the help of local people.

“[As] for the passengers, everyone is safe,” Listyo told reporters.

The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) had said in a statement Tuesday that it would not release Merthens “unless Indonesia sets us free from its colonization.”

On Wednesday, the Liberation Army said it would not release the pilot until Western countries stopped supporting Indonesia’s rule over Papua.

“The story isn’t over here,” Liberation Army spokesman Sebby Sambom said in a voice note sent to BenarNews.

“It will continue until countries like New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and Europe take responsibility for arming Indonesia and training them to kill us for 60 years.”

Meanwhile, Indonesian Armed Forces chief Admiral Yudo Margono cast doubts on claims that Mehrtens had been taken hostage, and said the pilot fled after his plane was attacked.

“There was no hostage-taking. He saved himself. We don’t know his whereabouts but we are searching for him,” Yudo told reporters.

Consular support had been given to the pilot’s family, the New Zealand government said in an email sent to BenarNews on Wednesday morning, declining to comment further.

‘Definitely traumatized’

Separately, 15 workers who were building a community health clinic in Nduga were transported by helicopter and underwent medical examinations in Kenyam, the main town in Nduga, according to Papua military commander Maj. Gen Saleh Mustafa.

Saleh said the workers were briefly held captive by the Liberation Army, but the rebel group’s spokesman, Sambom, called that “nonsense.”

“The TNI [military] and the police are only seeking legitimacy to carry out armed operations here. If we had really taken them hostage, we wouldn’t have released them,” Sambom told BenarNews.

Local military commander Brig. Sembiring said the leader of the Liberation Army in Nduga, Egianus Kogoya, had threatened to kill the workers if they did not leave Paro district.

“I think they are definitely traumatized, so we are now focusing on restoring their condition, both psychologically and physically,” Sembiring said in a statement.

Threats to civilians and airline crews had disrupted humanitarian work in Nduga, a regency in Papua’s central highlands, said Theofranus Litaay, an aide to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

“The workers were building a much-needed health center, and the pilot is serving a government-subsidized route to support access for the community,” Litaay told BenarNews Wednesday.

“Police must conduct a thorough investigation and enforce the law against the perpetrators of this crime.”

Air transportation is vital in jungle-covered Papua, where road networks are limited.

Violence and tensions in Papua, a region that makes up the western half of New Guinea island, have intensified in recent years.

In July 2022, rebels killed 10 civilians, mostly traders from other parts of Indonesia, accusing them of being spies for government security forces.

It was the deadliest attack by insurgents in the region since 2018 when insurgents attacked workers who were building roads and bridges in Nduga, killing 20 people, including an Indonesian soldier. At the time, the TPNPB said those killed were not civilian workers, but soldiers from the army’s engineering detachment.

The attack prompted the government to send more troops to Papua.

The region has a history of human rights violations by Indonesian security forces and police. Papuan separatist rebels also have been accused of attacking civilians.

In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded Papua, a former Dutch colony like Indonesia, and annexed it.

In 1969, the United Nations sponsored a referendum where only about 1,000 people voted.

Despite accusations that the vote was a farce, the U.N. recognized the outcome, effectively endorsing Indonesia’s control over Papua. (Victor Mambor / Arie Firdaus | BenarNews)

SEMARANG, LELEMUKU.COM - Central Java Police Chief, Inspector General Ahmad Luthfi, confirmed that the explosion that occurred near the Arumbara Police Dormitory on Larasati Street Number AA 12, Telukan Village, Grogol, Sukoharjo Regency, Central Java, Sunday, September 25, 2022, was not related to the action. terror.

For information, the explosion occurred at around 18.00 WIB. One person who is a member of the Solo Police, Bripka Digantara Pradipta Sukoco, was injured in the incident.

Ahmad Luthfi stated that from the results of the investigation of the crime scene or crime scene carried out by the Bomb Disposal Team, a black powder was found which was suspected to be the material for firecrackers.

"So, from the TKP conducted by the Jibom Team, we found two black powder plastic bags with a size of 1 ounce, 4 empty plastic wrappers, the rest, and firecracker wicks," he told the media crew during a press conference at the Grogol Police Office, Sukoharjo, Sunday.

Ahmad Luthfi confirmed that the incident occurred in an empty yard next to the police dormitory.

From the results of the development of a temporary investigation, Ahmad Luthfi said the package came from Indramayu and was ordered on April 22, 2021. The package was ordered from CV Mandiri Sujono Indramayu with a COD or cash-on-delivery system.

"The sender of the package, with the initials S, has now been secured at (Polres) Indramayu," he said.

The recipient of the package, with the initials A in the Klaten area, has also been arrested by the Solo Police.
Member Negligence

Ahmad Luthfi explained that the police officers who were victims in the incident were known to have conducted raids about a year ago, related to an online order package containing black powder which was suspected to be the material for the firecrackers.

From the information provided by CV Mandiri Sujono, it was stated that black powder was used as an ingredient to repel rats in the Klaten area.

"That is, I confirm that the explosion in our area in the Sukoharjo area does not have an element of terror. It is suspected that it was only the negligence of members that caused the material to explode," he said.

However, to confirm the alleged negligence of the member, Ahmad Luthfi said his team would conduct further investigations. This is considering the current condition of the victim who is still injured and being treated at the hospital.

"We can't confirm that he was negligent because the victim, in this case, a member, is still in a sick condition at the hospital. When it's time we will check," he said.

According to Ahmad Lutfi, the victim's condition was 70 percent burns and there were open wounds on his legs

"The victim suffered burns by 70 percent and on the leg, there was an open wound," he said.

Ahmad Luthfi ensured that the police would investigate the case further. (Septia Ryanthie | Tempo)

NAYPYIDAY, LELEMUKU.COM - Myanmar’s junta has yet to deliver humanitarian assistance pledged three months ago by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for the country’s more than 1.2 million refugees of conflict who aid workers said are in dire need of food and medicine.

At a May 6 meeting in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA) agreed to deliver aid to Myanmar under the supervision of the military regime which would distribute it to those in need.

However, aid workers in northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region told Radio Free Asia (RFA), an online affiliate of BenarNews, that as of Monday none of the promised aid had been delivered there or other regions with refugees in need, including Chin, Kayah and Kayin states.

“ASEAN’s help hasn’t made it to Sagaing yet,” said Thet Oo, who is assisting victims of conflict with the People-to-People Program in the region’s Yinmarbin and Salingyi townships.

“It’s been three months since their meeting, but nothing has come to Yinmarbin district at all.”

Thet Oo warned ASEAN not to trust the junta’s promises.

“The junta, which is terrorizing us, will never provide the aid or assistance they agreed to with ASEAN,” he said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced on Aug. 3 that 866,000 people had joined the ranks of Myanmar’s refugees since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup, bringing the total number to more than 1.2 million, or more than 2 percent of the country’s population of 54.4 million.

Of the new refugees, about 470,000 were forced to flee their homes in Sagaing, where clashes between junta troops and the armed opposition are among the deadliest and most frequent in the nation.

Thet Oo said his organization is struggling to provide assistance with only donations to rely on.

Meanwhile, the military is carrying out a scorched earth offensive in the region, conducting raids on villages and setting them on fire, and creating new refugees each day, he said.

In neighboring Chin state, where fierce fighting is also a daily occurrence, refugees are also facing severe shortages, aid workers told RFA.

“The need for food and medicine is still very great. There isn’t enough food in the mountains. No NGOs have yet come here,” said a spokesman for the Mindat Township Refugee Camps Management Committee speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Since the beginning, when we heard ASEAN would be providing assistance through the junta, we have been skeptical. It was clear that Chin state would not be included in the distribution program. Sure enough, no aid has reached the refugees in Mindat township to date.”

Repeated calls by RFA seeking comment from junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun on the status of the ASEAN aid distribution went unanswered.

Agreement panned

ASEAN’s decision to deliver assistance to Myanmar’s refugees through the junta was slammed by the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), as well as the Karen National Union (KNU), Karenni National Progressive Party and Chin National Front ethnic parties as “unacceptable” in a joint statement on May 30.

The groups, which the junta says are terrorist organizations, were not extended an invitation by ASEAN to the May 6 meeting in Phnom Penh at the request of the military regime, nor was the U.N. secretary general’s special representative to Myanmar, Nolin Heza.

Win Myat Aye, NUG minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, told RFA this week that ASEAN’s plan to provide aid through the junta will not do anything for the people who are suffering the most in Myanmar.

“What ASEAN is doing … is impractical. It hasn’t been successful because it never reached those who really need it for more than three months now,” he said.

“NUG is now already working to meet the actual needs on the ground. We are working in cooperation with international organizations, so the information we act on will be true and we can provide the necessary help. … In order to be successful, we need to help with real action, not just words.”

Win Myat Aye noted that the NUG disaster ministry had been providing shelter and medicine to refugees since the coup.

Aid workers helping refugees in Chin, Kayah and Kayin states, as well as some townships in Sagaing and Magway regions, told RFA that even if the junta is working to deliver assistance from ASEAN, it only controls Myanmar’s cities and its administration is broken in rural areas.

KNU spokesman Pado Saw Tawney said that the junta is incapable of reaching all of the country’s refugees on its own.

“There are over a million [refugees] according to available statistics. But in fact, what we believe is that there may be 2 million or more,” he said.

“This situation has become a problem that cannot be solved internally. It requires cooperation with the international community. … That’s the bottom line. Nothing will happen if it is carried out by the junta alone.”

The U.N. humanitarian affairs office said in its statement on Aug. 3 that the security and humanitarian aid situations in Myanmar have worsened significantly as fighting continues throughout the country. The agency said efforts to deliver assistance to refugees have been hamstrung by military restrictions on the transportation of essential goods, including food and medical supplies.

Call for stronger measures

Reports of the worsening refugee situation in Myanmar came as the country’s opposition groups and analysts called on ASEAN to adopt stronger measures in its dealing with the junta following the bloc’s 55th Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh from July 31 to Aug. 6.

During the gathering, most ASEAN member states criticized the junta for failing to implement the bloc’s agreements and for its July 25 execution of four democracy activists, including former student leader Ko Jimmy and a former lawmaker from Myanmar’s deposed National League for Democracy party.

However, the wording of a statement issued at the end of the meeting was toned down because of an objection from the Myanmar delegation. The decision regarding Myanmar will be taken at the annual ASEAN Summit in November after studying and evaluating the extent to which the bloc’s 2021 Consensus is implemented by the junta.

Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the NUG presidential office, said it is no longer enough for ASEAN to simply make criticisms. Instead, he said, the bloc should undertake “practical measures,” noting that there is no resolution in sight for Myanmar’s political crisis more than 18 months after the takeover.

“The 5-Point Consensus (5PC) has been disregarded and is still being ignored and it has been almost a year and a half since the coup,” he said, referring to an agreement between the junta and ASEAN to end violence in Myanmar during an emergency in April 2021.

“We’re thankful that they expressed their concern and they said they condemn the Myanmar issue. But I’d like to reiterate that now is the time to talk less and take action more.”

Kyaw Zaw said he welcomed the ASEAN foreign ministers’ decisions not to allow high-ranking representatives of the junta to attend the bloc’s ministerial-level meetings in the future, set a precise time frame for the implementation of the ASEAN Consensus and to hold formal discussions with the NUG.

Zero implementation

Under the 5PC, the junta agreed to end to violence in the country, facilitate constructive dialogue among all parties, and allow the mediation of such talks by a special ASEAN envoy. The 5PC also calls for the provision of ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation to meet with all parties.

Even regime leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing acknowledged that the junta had failed to hold up its end of the bargain on the consensus in a televised speech earlier this month in which he announced that the junta was extending by six months the state of emergency it declared following last year’s coup. He blamed the coronavirus pandemic and “political instability” for the failure and said he will implement “what we can” from the 5PC this year, provided it does not “jeopardize the country’s sovereignty.”

The junta’s failure to abide by the 5PC drew criticism last week from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who told Voice of America’s Khmer service that if the agreement is not met, ASEAN should adopt new measures, including suspending Myanmar’s membership in the bloc.

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun did not immediately respond to request for comment on ASEAN’s criticism.

The junta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that inviting a lower-level delegate from Myanmar to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and related meetings was a violation of the bloc’s charter.

Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the pro-military Thayninga Strategic Studies Institute, warned that ASEAN would become weaker if Myanmar were to be suspended.

“Currently, it’s not easy to suspend Myanmar straight away. But even if they were to make such a decision, Myanmar’s special interests would not be affected,” he said.

“We think ASEAN would become weakened and break up because of the [suspension.]”

Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a political analyst, said removing Myanmar from the bloc would only lower the pressure on the junta.

“ASEAN doesn’t have much leverage now. Expelling Myanmar would be the worst case scenario. It is within the bounds of what they can do, but I don’t think they will go that far,” he said.

“If they cut Myanmar off like that, it will be more difficult to engage ... so, it’s unlikely.”

ASEAN Special Envoy for Myanmar Prak Sokhonn is scheduled to make his third official visit to the country in September.

During his last visit in July, the envoy did not meet with any armed ethnic groups that are opposed to the junta’s coup, nor the NLD, which won Myanmar’s 2020 election in a landslide victory before being deposed in last year’s putsch.

Observers said Sokhonn’s failure to meet the opposition or other anti-junta stakeholders during his visit would only serve to legitimize military rule. (BenarNews)