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| Southeast Asia |
| Indonesia snubs Aussie dead |
| 2006-03-28 |
| TOP Indonesian officials have refused to pay tribute to the nine Australians killed last year helping Nias Island's earthquake victims. As anger mounts over Canberra's granting of visas to West Papuan separatists, a senior Indonesian military spokesman said plans for Sunday's anniversary ceremony had not been approved and it might not take place. Officials in Jakarta have also delayed signing a $10 million agreement on Australian assistance to fight bird flu and banned Australian Greens senator Kerry Nettle from travelling to West Papua. Separately, demonstrators have daubed obscenities on the walls of the Australian embassy in Jakarta in protest, as local police stood by in silence. Indonesia recalled its ambassador to Australia last Friday in protest at Australia's granting of temporary visas to 43 Papuans who fled in a boat to Cape York in January seeking asylum. Nationalist Indonesian MPs have since called for diplomatic ties with Australia to be cut, and for their Government to turn a blind eye to illegal immigrants who use Indonesia as a staging point to get to Australia. The escalating tensions between the two nations come 12 months after the relationship was heralded as reaching new heights in the wake of Australia's aid effort after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and an earthquake last March. But yesterday, as family members of the Australians killed in the Nias Island helicopter crash prepared to travel to the site for a memorial service, it became clear how far the relationship had deteriorated. Military and government officials in Jakarta seemed, at best, uninterested in Sunday's service in Tuindrao village, near the west coast of Nias. It was the Australian Defence Force's worst defence loss of life on foreign soil since Vietnam. And despite the tragedy having last year brought the two countries and their governments close together in grief, Indonesian defence department's chief of international relations Colonel Wahyu Suhendar said last night: "We don't know if we are sending anyone yet." A spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said last night the Australian Government had no indication from Indonesia about there being a problem with the ceremony. But in Jakarta, the deputy spokesman for the military, Colonel Ahmad Yani Basuki, added that the whole event was still under a cloud. "At the moment the event has not been cleared," he said. "There is no certainty on whether it's going to be held or not, and that's all I'll say." Following a massive earthquake on the island on March 28 last year, the ageing navy Sea King helicopter, codenamed Shark 02, was flying a rescue mission with 11 medical personnel and air crew from HMAS Kanimbla when it cartwheeled into the ground and burst into flames. A crash inquiry has heard a bolt fell out of the helicopter's flight control system. Only two passengers survived, communications specialist Shane Warburton and paramedic Scott Nicholls, who were dragged from the wreckage by villagers. Still-grieving family members of the victims will travel to the dusty football field where the crash occurred on board an air force C-130 Hercules and HMAS Tobruk, before joining local Indonesian officials in Tuindrao to dedicate a memorial. Letters requesting senior Indonesian brass to attend were sent several months ago by the Australian Embassy in Jakarta to the chiefs of the navy, air force and army, as well as the foreign ministry. |
| Posted by:Oztrailan |
| #3 Indonesia is doing its level best to isolate itself from the rest of the world. They had better think very hard about what they're asking for, or they might get it. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-03-28 22:12 |
| #2 Indonesia is doing its level best to isolate itself from the rest of the world. They had better think very hard about what they're asking for, or they might get it. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-03-28 22:12 |
| #1 The Javanese imperialists don't like having their the legitimacy of their conquests questioned. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-03-28 20:02 |