If a volcano kills civilians in Indonesia, it's news. When the government does the killing, sadly, it's just business as usual, especially if an American president tacitly endorses the killing, as President Barack Obama just did with his visit to Indonesia.
Indonesia
The problem with foreign aid: A memoir
During the recent G8-G20 summit meetings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper hoped to elevate his status as a world leader by making Maternal Health the centrepiece of Canada's aid. Instead, his plan crashed when world leaders recognized it for what it really was, an ideologically driven scheme, offered with the condition that Family Planning was not to be included.
Having spent eight years of the 1980s as an "aid worker" in Indonesia, I learned a lot about conditional aid and the missionary zeal of so-called benefactors, the governments and agencies, such as the World Bank, that can corrupt donor and recipient alike.
Obama potentially takes a step backwards in Indonesia
President Barack Obama dedicated the signing of health care legislation to a number of people, including his mother, S. Ann Dunham Soetoro, who, he said, "argued with insurance companies even as she battled cancer in her final days." The health care legislative process and its frenetic endgame prompted the president to postpone a trip to the country where his mother raised him for several years of his childhood: Indonesia. While his health care bill is considered by many a huge step forward, Obama is simultaneously, and with far less scrutiny, potentially taking a huge step backward with Indonesia.
News is breaking in Indonesia about the role of the Indonesian military in the murder of political activists in the province of Aceh last year, in the lead-up to elections.
October 8, 2009 |
Relief operations continue, focusing on assisting the thousands of people that have lost their homes and loved ones and are now living in very harsh conditions.