2) Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste Prepare for Strategic Elections
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A google translate.Be-aware google translate can be a bit erratic.
Original bahasa link at
1) Political development of Indonesia in Papua spotlight Conference Sydney
Jubi | News Portal Papua No. 1,
Jayapura, Jubi - Political development in Papua Indonesia helped to warm discussion at a two day conference titled 'At the Intersection: Pacific Climate Change and Resource Exploitation in West Papua' in Sydney, Australia.
"Development in Papua now has a tremendous impact on the dignity of indigenous peoples or indigenous Papuans," said Emil Kleden who expressed his impression on the conference that took place last week it was the Jubi, Wednesday (09/11/2016). Emil Kleden one of the speakers at the conference representing the NGO Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) based in Jakarta, Indonesia.
"This impact is primarily on the loss of the sources of life, the unavailability of enough alternative for indigenous Papuan communities to defend their lives and develop their economies," said Emil on that occasion to present the topic "Commitment to Reducing Emissions Indonesia and Papua, Between Reality and Dreams . "
In a paper presentation, Emil deliver emission reductions of six challenges in Papua, which have a direct impact on climate change.
"The high rate of deforestation, large-scale development that was imposed throughout Papua, policies and approaches that do not change in Papua, the composition is not balanced between growth Papuans and non-Papuans and the impact on economic relations, the large number of indigenous people in the interior, as well as changes production and consumption patterns of all it contributes substantially to the constraints and opportunities of self-determination of indigenous Papuans, "he said.
According to Emil, criticism of the program initiated by the Conservation province of West Papua Province also surfaced at the forum. "The Province of Conservation was criticized as unlikely to work well without the urgent release of the military from West Papua, for the conservation status will further marginalize OAP who depend directly on forests and natural resources," he said.
Conference initiated by West Papua Project, University of Sydney, fronted by Dr. Cammi Webb-Gannon of Western Sydney University, Jim Elmslie, Peter King and Jason MacLeod of the University of Sydney).
RNZI Launched last week, Dr. Cammi Webb said the conference aims to find a common thread between the two important issues in West Papua. "Colonization of Indonesia over West Papua is causing insanely obtain any exploitation of resources, as well as the increasing number of human rights violations and environmental damage. So both are very closely crochet hooks," said Webb.
Emil added, the development of West Papuan political struggle in international forums like the United Nations and MSG as well as a network of West Papua in the Pacific, also addressed the conference.
"Ralph Regenvanu, Minister of Land and Natural Resources Vanuatu, was present on that occasion, he was very bright arguments on why it supported the struggle of the people of Papua. Not only the spirit of Melanesia but rather on the fundamental principle of the United Nations, namely self-determination as well as historical factors of Papua, "he said by telephone from Jakarta.
West Papua diplomatic efforts require information from all fronts, political, economic, social and environmental, "for (the term Ralph) add bullet (bullets) in perjuangn diplomatic," said Emil quoted Regenvanu. (*)
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http://thediplomat.com/2016/11/papua-new-guinea-timor-leste-prepare-for-strategic-elections/
2) Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste Prepare for Strategic Elections
By Luke Hunt November 14, 2016
Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste have stood on the fringes of ASEAN with ambitions of joining the 10-nation trading bloc for more than a decade. Both are struggling democracies, nations with a least-developed tag beside their name, and a history of communal violence. And neither are the sort of ideal sovereign role model that the secretariat in Jakarta would welcome with open arms.
Supporters of their ASEAN applications, however, would argue the same was said about Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar when they joined the 600 million-strong bloc in the 1990s. But those three countries did boast much bigger populations and strategic position needed for the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community, launched at the start of this year.
“Stability is an issue everywhere,” said Keith Loveard, a regional risk analyst with Jakarta-based Concord Consultancy.
“However, neither PNG nor Timor-Leste has demonstrated that they can maintain stability. The PNG government is perpetually hanging on by a fragile thread and to even talk about stability when the capital is effectively a no-go area is a stretch of the imagination.
“Timor-Leste has experienced plenty of problems maintaining stability since independence, not least the jealousies between the eastern and western parts of the country,” he said.
Their reputations are a perennial sore point, but PNG and Timor-Leste will shortly hold strategically important elections, which will be watched carefully by regional observers and serve as a harbinger for their respective futures and their place in the region.
In Timor-Leste tribal elections have just been held and presidential elections will be staged in the new year. Assuming they pass off peacefully, the presidential polls will help clear a path toward the young country’s integration with ASEAN, which has been touted by the Indonesians for 2017.
But Timor-Leste’s past has been turbulent ever since the first United Nations-backed troops were dispatched after independence was won at the ballot box in 1999.
A coup in 2006 prompted the re-deployment of UN and Australian forces. More Australian troops arrived two years later amid further bloodshed and an assassination attempt on then-prime minister Jose Ramos-Horta.
“Timor-Leste’s factionalism remains a problem for the emergence of what might be termed a full democratic state,” said Gavin Greenwood, a regional security analyst with Hong Kong-based Allan & Associates.
“This is unlikely to be altered by next year’s presidential elections … this reflects the country’s troubled past and the country’s small political class – both of which are connected – although there is no indication that they will not meet international standards,” he said.
Timor-Leste applied for membership to ASEAN in March 2011, a bid which was reaffirmed after elections the following year.
Former President and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao says every country within ASEAN supports its regional integration and that a road map had been established, including its active participation in meetings as a future member of the bloc.
But Greenwood noted other member states were unlikely to oppose Jakarta’s backing of Timor-Leste as they would see little to gain from unnecessarily antagonizing Indonesia – by far the biggest force within ASEAN – over a country with little to add to the grouping other than aggrandizement.
“Timor-Leste’s small market and narrow economy hold few advantages, while the global impetus for consolidation into often internally unbalanced trading blocs has come under greater scrutiny post-Brexit,” he added.
Meanwhile, PNG has held observer status within ASEAN since 1976, but its bid for full membership to the group has also faced persistent obstacles.
In particular, Port Moresby still has unresolved sovereignty issues with the island of Bougainville as it enters the final stages of a peace agreement, which ended a decade-long war in 1999 that left up to 20,000 people dead. Fabled for its giant copper mine, Bougainville is now an autonomous part of PNG and a date for an independence referendum has been sketched in for June 2019.
PNG remains a politically confused and challenged nation, and this will not change ahead of elections, said Greenwood.
“Allegations of corruption, the ruling elites’ response to such charges, [and] growing dissatisfaction among the small young educated urban class to such allegations all point towards further instability and possibly unrest,” he said.
In PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and the president of Bougainville, John Momis, insist they are working toward overcoming problems associated with the referendum on independence.
Nevertheless, Bougainvillians have complained that Port Moresby has been holding-out on promised – and much needed – development aid while in PNG fears persist that militias on the isolated island have failed to completely disarm.
Those fears should subside once the independence election is done. But Greenwood and Loveard both noted that “once again” Indonesia would hold a controlling defacto veto on PNG and its efforts to gain membership to the ASEAN trade bloc.
They also said PNG’s bid would not be helped by its geography, which Greenwood noted was even “more remote than Timor-Leste.”
This was further complicated “Melanesian solidarity” in Port Moresby.
Greenwood said the aspirations of the Indonesian Papua’s indigenous population – culturally and ethnically tightly bound with clans across the border in PNG – meant Jakarta would not see much of an advantage in giving PNG a potential platform within ASEAN to challenge its claims in its easternmost provinces.
Essentially, PNG and Timor-Leste have moved closer to ASEAN integration but membership to the 10-nation club is far from a foregone conclusion.
“Seen from the perspective of ASEAN, it’s difficult to see that these two will make much of a contribution to an organization that demonstrates more differences than similarities,” Loveard said.
“Is it feasible to see ASEAN summits in either Dili or Port Moresby? There’s no doubt that both would benefit from membership of ASEAN, not least from open trade, but is the reverse true? It doesn’t seem that way.”
There has also been speculation that Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and even Taiwan could join the ASEAN grouping.
All three would have have more to offer than PNG or Timor-Leste. However, it is important to note that Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar have not emerged as major embarrassments to the trading bloc, as some critics had predicted when they were first mooted in the early 1990s.
But ASEAN’s next expansion wave will center on Timor-Leste and PNG. And if they do make the ASEAN grade, could Bougainville also join the regional club as an independent nation further down the track?
Luke Hunt can be followed on Twitter @lukeanthonyhunt
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