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Indonesia eventually... this is the third ...
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Indonesia eventually...
This is the third world.. oh yes
I've managed to find Jakartas most glamorous backpackers for pounds 1.52 a night.
The lumpiest matteres ever a toilet that you have to use a bucket thing to flush (it's better than the Malaysia hole in the floor no toilet paper ones though)
Played guitar with some French blokes and an English teacher sitting out on the street in front of the backpackers as people seem to do over here. The Frendch blokes seem to be professional island hoppers and the teacher is determined to make it back to England by land from Australia. Not a bad mission.
The street I'm staying on is a lively, bustling, dirty little street with karaoke bars, street vendors, street kids, overly friendly local girls and some monkeys chained to a pole.
Bought a ticket to Medan (a city on north Sumatra, Indonesia) from there I will make my way though Aech to Palua Weh. Every time I mention Aech people go off into the be careful speech. What is said to be wary of is the GAM rebel group that operates in the area. From all the reading up I've done on the place it seems to me that the Indonesian military is what I should be careful of. Because as is the case with west Papua (another Indonesian island) the military have come up with methods of insuring their income is constant. The source of income being from the logging and mining companies (Legal and illegal operations) as payment for protection from the rebels. Although I know of no foreigners that have been harmed by the rebels they seem to keep this ferocious reputation. But reputations some times not being enough the military have taken to disguising themselves as the rebels and
Attaching the very companies they are paid to protect. This tactic recently caused a number of employees and hangers on of the Freeport mine in west Papua to expire.
So, it is all about balance. Give the rebels to much ground they lose the territory crush the uprising and they lose the protection money.
This is not such a bad situation if you think of how many lives could be lost if they scales where tipped either way. But there is a looser and that is everyone because the rate they are clearing this massive island it will be cleared of rain forest in a decade or so. And no, sustainable development is not a concept Indonesians seem to grasp, or most of the world for that matter. There is little to no replanting.
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| 5. | Indonesia eventually... this is the third ... - Jakarta, Indonesia Oct 03, 2002 |
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