A view of the Syrian protest movements

In the five months I have reported from Syria I have seen the country change dramatically. I witnessed how the grievances of generations were catalyzed by the unchecked carnage of the militarized state under the Assad firm. And how a diverse and determined resistance movement eroded the paralyzing fear that permeated society for years, while the calculated brutality of the regime accelerated.

Syrians have a deep and poetic historical memory. I remember a friend, after hearing that his cousin had been arrested, reciting the poetry of the 11th-century bard Abu Ala al-Maari of Maarat al-Numaan, one of many towns besieged by the army and Shabbiha militia in the hunt for the ‘armed gangs’ the regime blames for the unrest. Shabbiha means ‘those who make ghosts’. They are a brutal group of mercenaries from the ruling Alawite élite.

‘You’ve had your way a long, long time, you kings and tyrants; and still you work injustice hour by hour,’ he sang. ‘Could the king his governors around him save – Or Caesar his patricians from the grave?’

The crisis in Syria was prefaced by four decades of nepotism and graft. For years the regime eroded its base among the rural poor and working class by land grabs, Orwellian propaganda and Machiavellian politics. The so-called silent majority includes millions of these people.

Human rights groups say at least 2,000 civilians have been killed in the uprising and more than 20,000 have disappeared into prisons. But journalists from the state news agency, who have close contacts in the security forces, told me the real death toll is probably much higher, as many of those arrested have been killed and buried secretly.

One protester from Homs summed up the battle for Syria shortly after being released from prison, tears streaming down his face. ‘They kill people without thought – this is normal, and we resist in peace because our cause is just. But when they torture you they don’t just want to hurt your body, they take your mind. They break you.’

There are a few possible outcomes to the current conflict. Civil war is one. There are signs the army may split, though it remains unlikely that enough soldiers will defect to cause the regime real problems. One colonel called for the creation of a Syrian Free Army in July. There is already armed resistance in some areas and I am told by a reliable source that Katyusha rockets on their way to Hizbullah in Lebanon have been intercepted in Hama. Defecting soldiers have set up brigades with names like Brigade of Free Officers. There have been attacks on oil pipelines near Deir ez-Zor and Homs, though the opposition blames the regime.

But what has impressed me about the protest movement is how peaceful it has been under such strain. I have seen 50 protesters armed only with slingshots stand up to 300 heavily armed troops as they opened fire – a scene that Palestinians would surely recognize. Groups organizing protests are amorphous and loosely affiliated with each other, if at all. This is in part for security and, although it makes a well-organized revolution unlikely, it also makes the uprising harder to suppress.

There is much talk of sectarian conflict, but I have seen little evidence to back it up. The current deadlock could continue for some time despite the histrionics of international diplomacy. Hypocrisy frames the international debate. The problem for the West is that the regime killed too many people and it became politically uncomfortable. After all, Syria became an ally in our outsourcing of torture and was to help us pacify the Sunni resistance in Iraq. But it will be Syrians braving gunfire and arrest to demand basic rights who will hold the Assad clan to account in the end. The poets have said as much, and they have the ear of the people. Before he was killed in Hama, the protest singer Ibrahim Qashoosh uttered these words: ‘We will remove Bashar with our strength. Syria wants freedom.’ One way or another, they will get it.

Following recent events, Indonesia has sent in yet more police and tried to justify the scandalous actions of its security forces as necessary to deal with “separatism”.

Why has New Zealand made no public statement condemning this latest crackdown? Our Government Superannuation fund and other Crown Financial Institutes invest in Freeport McMoran. Both Government and the Superannuation Fund Board have so far resisted all calls to follow the ethical example of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund which divested from Freeport in 2006.

The New Zealand Minister of Defence recently talked about increasing our defence ties with Indonesia by extending the training we currently offer to Indonesian officers and hosting some ‘higher level’ visits of Indonesian personnel. We also have an NZAID training programme for the mainly migrant West Papua police. We promote community policing’ a non-confrontational model that is about as far from current Papuan police practice as it is possible to imagine!

The buzz word is “engagement” – if we talk nicely the military and police will learn not to open fire on unarmed civilians and Freeport will improve its human rights and environmental standards. Instead we should go with the tide of history, and start listening to West Papuan leaders who want us to support their call for peaceful dialogue.

Read the full article on the New Zealand Herald here.

If Bashar al-Assad’s regime does cling to power, it may be forced to amend the constitution to allow for greater political pluralism

Asia Pulp and Paper has announced it has commissioned an independent audit of its practices in Indonesia following a UN call for businesses around the world to protect human rights.

But activists said they were skeptical given the company’s record of environmental destruction, links to human rights abuses and the limited scope of the audit.

APP hired international accountancy firm Mazars to conduct the audit in the wake of the UN Human Rights Council’s publication in June of the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, a set of guidelines about how companies should act with regards to human rights.

“[Holding companies accountable] could be the next big thing in human rights,” said Marzuki Darusman, director of the Asean Human Rights Resource Center, who will be part of the team carrying out the audit.

“But the audit could be compromised if at any time there is a conflict of interest between Mazars and APP. It does not ensure that there will be no human rights abuses in the future.”

The audit would not be based solely on the UN principles, but James Kallman, president of Mazars Indonesia, said the firm would implement rigorous methods of assessment.

“We will be basing our study on more than 100 indicators including work environment, forced labor, gender equality, community and environmental impact and conflict resolution. We expect to be allowed full access to carry out our audit independently,” he said. “Companies today need to realize that to be sustainable they need to consider factors other than how much money they make.”

But Marzuki said that while they would look into alleged cases of abuse by APP, they were limited to the remit laid out in an APP policy statement provided to them and would not be able to investigate cases documented by third parties.

“This is not the first time APP has commissioned audits by companies claiming to be independent and they eventually always produce positive assessments [of APP], which we think is far from the reality on the ground,” said Hariansyah Usman, head of Walhi Riau, a local environmental NGO.

The company is frequently cited in international and local NGOs’ reports that claim it is involved in numerous cases of abuse and environmental destruction.

A 2003 Human Rights Watch report called “Without Remedy” included evidence of attacks on Malay and Sakai communities in Riau in Sumatra, the hub of Indonesia’s pulp and paper industry. It alleged that an APP sister company, Arara Abadi, sent armed security, or Pam Swakarsa, overseen by Indonesian security forces, to violently intimidate villagers protesting against government-sanctioned land grabs.

The company has always denied the allegations and has recently pledged to abide by a two-year government ban on deforestation.

But Hariasnyah said that Walhi Riau had evidence that APP has continued to clear protected forest outside of its already large concessions.

Norman Jiwan, head of Sawit (Palm Oil) Watch, said the moratorium was ineffective as it was not applied retrospectively, and APP would continue to do “business as usual.”

“APP must go beyond the law, and implement best practices without compromising the human rights of local communities and indigenous peoples,” he said.

At the time of going to print, APP had not responded to interview requests.

They’re employed at the US owned Freeport McMoran copper and gold mine.

Analyst Dr Chris Ballard says the mine has been plagued with problems because of interference from the Indonesian government and massive wage disparities between locals and foreign executives.

Listen to the full interview on ABC Radio Australia.

One of the enduring horrors of the occupation of East Timor was the “fence of legs” campaign of 1981 where civilians were rounded up and forcibly marched across the island to flush out resistance fighters – including Xanana Gusmao, now the fledgling nation’s Prime Minister.

Many died along the way. The campaign led to “very serious humanitarian consequences,” including famine as it took place during planting season and many of those press-ganged were subsistence farmers.

The march headed to Lacluta where the UN Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation determined hundreds of East Timorese were murdered by Indonesian armed forces. “The commission received evidence of a large massacre of civilians, including women and children, at this time,” it said.

Indonesian authorities admitted to only 70 deaths, while Martinho da Costa Lopes of East Timor’s Catholic church said the death toll was closer to 500. One East Timorese fighter said the attack was carried out by Battalion 744, later to be commanded by Indonesia’s current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“I witnessed with my own eyes how the Indonesian military, Battalion 744, killed civilians in front of me,” Albino da Costa said. “They captured those unarmed people, tied them up then stabbed them to death. There was a pregnant woman captured and killed just like that. I saw it from a close distance, just 100m from where it happened.”

Costa Lopes died in Lisbon in 1991. His repeated calls for intervention by the United Nations and for curtailment of United States military aid to the Indonesian Government went unheeded.

The US, Japan and a number of Western European countries continued to provide Indonesia with about $5 billion in military aid. In the aftermath of the 1975 invasion the media largely ignored, as one Australian parliamentary report called it, “indiscriminate killing on a scale unprecedented in post-World War II history,” because of Indonesia’s vast natural resources. It was, as former US President Richard Nixon put it, the “greatest prize in the Southeast Asian area”.

Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor ended with independence and perhaps as many as a third of the population killed.

But today there is another war for independence in Indonesia: West Papua. And the parallels with East Timor are striking.

Papuans have endured horrific violence since Indonesia first invaded in 1963. Amnesty International and other human rights groups agree that as many as 100,000 Papuans have been killed under occupation.

West Papua is rich in minerals and oil. Transmigration, commercial logging, mining and other government-sponsored programs are considered to be in the interests of the nation, and take priority over any local land claims.

It has the world’s largest gold mine, controlled by the Freeport-McMoRan Company of Louisiana and the Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto. General Suharto granted the concession under the 1967 foreign investment laws that opened Indonesia to near-unrestricted foreign wealth exploitation.

When guerrillas from the Free West Papua Movement sabotaged the mine in 1977, the army responded by killing at least 800 Papuans. This was not the first, not the last time the Indonesian military would be used to protect Western capital under the guise of “protecting the unity of the nation”. It is happening still.

Grasberg workers walked out on strike over pay and conditions on Wednesday. The mineworkers are paid between $1.50 and $3.50 per hour, less than a tenth of what their colleagues in other countries get, while between April and June 2011 Freeport made a profit of $1.73 billion. Most of the wealth extracted from the mine goes abroad – a tiny percentage benefits Papuans. Two thirds of West Papua’s forests – which are at the heart of Papuans’ traditional way of life – are designated for “production” by Jakarta.

An Indonesian military intelligence report leaked to the press in August showed how the island is awash with spies. And how badly equipped are the Papuan separatists to fight the Indonesian military. The TNI is armed and trained by the US and its allies as part of the East Asia Summit grouping, which is fast developing into a Nato for Asia.

Ahead of the planned Third Papuan Peoples Conference, Indonesian paramilitary forces linked to the police and Special Forces of the army appear to have stepped up military operations in the province, which have been described as a campaign of terror by people on the ground. According to KontraS, The Commission for the Disappeared, the army’s actions are illegal under Indonesian law.

Just like in East Timor before independence, West Papua is a prime example of a colony where the extraction of wealth for the benefit of a few outweighs a people’s fundamental right to self-determination. If atrocities such as the one at Lacluta are to be prevented in the future in West Papua, the TNI should withdraw and international investigators should be allowed access to the region.

Jakarta is at a crossroads with international attention focused on West Papua following the Pacific Islands Forum meetings in New Zealand. The head of the UN Ban Ki Moon was unequivocal when asked about Papua. Papuans’ rights should be upheld, he said. Indonesia’s government could take this opportunity to fulfill its pledge to grant Papuans autonomy. But this must include an end to the lawlessness of government-sponsored armed groups, a withdrawal of army units, and determining how Papuans’ natural resources are used must be the preserve of Papuans.

An Indonesian radio broadcaster critical of the human rights record of the Chinese authorities has been convicted of administrative violations following what he said was a years-long campaign to shut his station down.

Gatot Supriyanto Machali, the manager of Erabaru FM in Batam in Riau Islands, was sentenced to six months in prison and a year of probation by a court on Tuesday for “broadcasting without permission” and “disrupting other frequencies.”

“The root cause of the attack on Erabaru is the intervention of the Chinese regime,” Gatot said. “The government was pressured by the Chinese Embassy to criminalize me and shut the station down. In this case the authorities passed the buck to the courts.”

Another three months will be added to Machali’s jail sentence if he is unable to pay a fine of Rp 50 million ($5,800), which the court also imposed.

The government brought charges against Machali in March for broadcasting without a license, charges that carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

In 2008 the government rejected the station’s license. But Gatot continued to broadcast and sued the government in an attempt to regain the broadcast license.

Although an appeal of his lawsuit has yet to be heard by the Supreme Court, in March the authorities conducted a daytime raid on his station and confiscated broadcasting equipment.

A letter dated January 2007, purportedly from the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta to the Indonesian government and seen by the Jakarta Globe, called for the station to be shut down, alleging it was part of an international conspiracy to overthrow the Chinese government.

At the time of writing, the Chinese Embassy was unavailable to comment on the issue.

“We are only reporting the facts of human rights abuses in China, as well as lots of other news, because most of our listeners are Chinese,” Gatot said. “I think the news that most scares the Chinese authorities is the coverage we have done on organ harvesting from Falun Gong members.”

Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is a spiritual movement with an estimated 70 million practitioners worldwide. In the letter seen by the Globe, it is described as an “evil cult.”

Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are believed to have been imprisoned extrajudicially in China and subjected to forced labor, severe psychological and physical torture and other forms of abuse.

Gatot’s conviction drew criticism from press freedom outfit Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Jean-Francois Julliard, the group’s secretary general, wrote to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar, asking them to intervene in the case. In the letter, Julliard called the sentence “disproportionate” and said the ruling was given for “political reasons.”

“We are not only calling for his release but for his right to continue to broadcast his program,” said Benjamin Ismail, from RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “Even if he violated Indonesian law, the infractions he committed do not justify imprisonment and such an excessive fine. The law should be revised in order to ensure equal access to broadcasting licences, and to decriminalize these infractions.”

Machali plans to appeal the verdict, which he can do within seven days.