The Indonesian government needs urgently to address discontent in Papua, its easternmost region, and recognise that the root of the problem is political, not economic.
01 July 2010
Election preparations continued despite no announcement of date; election commission issued directive banning marching and chanting during rallies. Reports several registered political parties u ...
Divisions and ideological debates generated by Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), an organisation founded by Indonesia’s best-known radical cleric, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, show the weakness of Indonesia’s jihadi movement.
The Thai government should immediately lift the state of emergency to create conditions for national reconciliation that would allow the building of a new political consensus and the holding of peaceful elections if the country is to return to stability.
The security threat at Indonesia and Timor-Leste’s shared border has decreased sharply since the latter’s 2002 independence, but failure to finalise agreement on the border and normalise cross-border traffic could allow limited but long-standing local disputes to escalate.
Whatever the outcome of the Philippine elections on 10 May, the new government should make Mindanao a priority, devoting serious attention to the peace process, the dissolution of private armies and justice for the 2009 Maguindanao massacre.
The Thai political system has broken down and seems incapable of pulling the country back from the brink of widespread conflict. The stand-off in the streets of Bangkok between the government and Red Shirt protesters is worsening and could deteriorate into an undeclared civil war.
As revelations about a jihadi coalition calling itself “Al Qaeda Indonesia in Aceh” continue to emerge, the Indonesian government should take steps to tighten control over prisons, provide more training for police in confronting armed suspects and consider banning paramilitary training by non-state actors.
Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua saw an upsurge in political violence in 2009, continuing into 2010.
The massacre on 23 November 2009 of 57 men and women by the private army of a warlord allied to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo shocked the country and the world.
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