As am I, K (interested that is)...tell more

"If you are really mature, you'll return Australia to Aborigines. If you no longer remember what land you came from, you'll apply for the kind permission of Aborigines to stay in their land. You'll pay them compensation for the land you stay upon and for the pain inflicted upon them by whites. If you can't afford it, you'll ask for the white govt to compensate Aborigines on your behalf."

That's okay PTBI. You appear to be so stupid that you cannot see the hypocrisy in your statements. Imagine had (racist) Australians not helped in allowing Indonesia to gain independence, the war against the Dutch would have reigned for a quite a while longer with many more Indonesians being killed, until it became economically unfeasible for the Netherlands to continue with a lost cause like Indonesia. Imagine even before that during, the Australians were fighting for their right to survive with the war against Japan, and this indirectly influenced your current independence. I doubt whether even the Dutch would have bothered trying to reclaim the East Indies with Japanese thoroughly occupying the area. You should also be grateful that you have such an advanced country like Australia as one of your neighbours. "Australia economically weak" did you say? Indonesia has a GDP of about $US900 billion or a GDP per capita of $US3700. Australia has a GDP of just over $US600 billion or a GDP per capita of about $30,000. This makes Australia's economy about 10 times stronger than Indonesias. For god sake, Suharto lost his presidency as the result of his country's flimsy economy in the late 1990s. For all your ranting and raving, you guys couldn't even get your military mobilised to look after a tsunami ravaged region. What good would it be doing in West Papua? I would have thought that Indonesia seeing 43 boat people head for Australia would be a matter of "good riddance" for Indonesia's cause. One wonders about the collective intelligence of Indonesia's politics.

@dee:

"PTBI – if ‘genocide’ had been committed in Australia, there would be no Aboriginals today. The concept is not that difficult."

LOL, so with this logic of yours, the Holocaust was not a genocide, since there are lots of Jewish people living in Germany and Europe today.

"Ask the survivors of Nanking, where Japanese soldiers tortured, raped and murdered over 90,000 people, from babies to the very old."

LOL, are you blaming Japanese-Americans living for generations in California for the Nanking atrocities? And you try to accuse me of "generalising"? I guess your logic is quite twisted.

"Have you personally apologised to the Chinese, or donated money to compensate them for their losses, as you advise Australians to do re Aboriginals?"

LOL, I am half-Chinese myself. Chinese-Indonesians have intermarried and assimilate with natives so much it is difficult to differentiate them with other Indonesian ethnicities. We Chinese-Indonesians speak Indonesian and practice Indonesian culture, we have much more thing in common with native Indonesians than with Chinese from China.

@ANI:

Spot on, old chap. It is sad how many white Australians are denying the despicable genocide committed against Aborigines :-(

@PJT:

LOL, don't praise yourself. Australia has no influence in Indonesian war of independence. Neither Indonesians nor the Dutch cared about puny Australia. Indonesia's cause was supported by both USA and Soviet Union, while nobody supported the tiny Dutch (the British supported them at first, but Indonesians killed three British generals and 1500 British soldiers between 1945-46 which made them change their mind). Indonesia owes its independence to nobody but itself!

Your GDP per capita might be higher since your population is 10 times smaller than Indonesia's, but our overall GDP is much higher than yours, while our economic growth far outstrips Australia's. Both regionally and internationally, your economy is insignificant. For Indonesia or other ASEAN countries, Australia is not an important trade partner. Why should we even bother with your "economy"?

And how dare you deny the sacrifices made by our military to help victims of tsunami!

GALLERY OF PICS OF TNI HUMANITARIAN OPERATIONS IN POST-TSUNAMI ACEH
http://www.tni.mil.id/gallery.php?q=dtl&cid=10

You have to be kidding yourself if you think that Australia had "no influence" in helping Indonesia gain its independence from the Netherlands. Australian troops occupied parts of modern day Indonesia to control the threat of Japanese troops still in Indonesia at the surrender of WW2. But when Dutch troops replaced the Australian troops, and then eventually regained control of the Indonesian archipelago, it was the USA, Britain, USSR, India and Australia supporting Indonesia's right to become part of the United Nations. Australia was boycotting the Dutch shipping by July 30, 1947. Imagine what sort of impact the boycott by Australia against the Netherlands' shipping would have had. Couldn't you admit/concede that it would have been more difficult for the Dutch to give supplies to the colonialists and wage further war on Indonesia? If you can't see that international pressure (especially from the USA) onto the Netherlands was what ultimately gave Indonesia its independence, then I don't know what you have been smoking.

Australia's population in comparison with Indonesia's has no real bearing on our GDP per capita. But your own GDP is only about $US300 billion more than Australia's based on Indonesia's 200 million more people living in that 'country'. Over $600 Billion isn't an insignificant economy. Would you really want to insult 20 million potential rich customers in Australia from buying from your country? Of course, I would hope that Indonesia's economic growth outstrips Australia's 4% per year rate. We don't want to see Indonesia keep falling backwards like it did nearly 10 years ago. You guys would have to play a lot of catch up after the disaster of the Asian financial crisis.

Only the top 10% of the Indonesia population makes (or betters) the average wages made by Australians. I would assume that the extra $300 billion would made up of income from the other 200 million Indonesians living in poverty. That's $1500 per year. Heck, I make that sort of money in a fortnight. But even then, you guys would be helpless without the IMF being your meal ticket.

ANI - Nobody is saying that the situation re Aboriginals should not be looked into, but the emphasis should be on the future, not on continually looking back to the past.

Murders, removals, etc - nobody denies that these things happened, but becoming fixated on events that can never be changed is counterproductive. Time spent agonising over the past is time wasted. There are so many issues in the Aboriginal community that need to be addressed urgently, like child abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse, illiteracy - these problems cannot be solved by throwing money at them, nor by the interference of well meaning white Australians. These problems can only be solved by aboriginals themselves. Living your life feeling full of resentment and hating other Australians because of past events that cannot be changed will not solve anything, in fact it will make Aboriginals even more miserable.

PTBI - 'are you blaming Japanese-Americans .. for the Nanking atrocities?'

No, that is your own twisted interpretation of my words.

I see Indonesians have a new hero - a religious Fascist who's threatening to nuke us .. I saw a photograph of this low-rent little man posing with the Iranian militia, amazing, they have the same shoulder patches as the Nazi SS. Lots of other things in common too, I'm sure.

'Iran’s leader a new hero among Indonesians'

'HE’S tiny, wears a perfectly groomed beard and waves to his supporters with both hands clasped high in the air, prize-fighter-style - and now Jakarta’s university students have declared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “the world’s most charismatic leader”.'

@PJT:

"Imagine what sort of impact the boycott by Australia against the Netherlands' shipping would have had."

None, because Dutch supply lines to Indonesia do not pass through Australia at all, as anyone with basic geographical knowledge would realise. The supply line went from Rotterdam-Port Said-Bombay-Singapore-Indonesia. The Dutch couldn't care less about faraway Australian ports. Besides, this "Australian" boycott was organised by Indonesian communists exiled to Australia by the Dutch during WWII.

As I said, US influence was important, but American support only came after Indonesians crushed communist rebellion of 1948, which cements our reputation as anti-communist country during Cold War. Prior to that, USA was sympathetic to the Dutch.

It was thanks to the brilliant work of Indonesian diplomats and the foolish blunders of the Dutch that Indonesian cause received almost total international support.

Again, without the sacrifices of new-Indonesian military who killed 4000 Dutch soldiers while losing around 20 thousand, our new republic would've been crushed by the 200,000 Dutch invaders. Instead, Indonesian govt survived the Dutch onslaught completely unscathed.

It is clear, Indonesians owes its independence to no-one but to themselves!

As for your childish economic "comments", some facts:

1)GDP per capita is inversely related with population.

2)Australia is not an important trading partner for Indonesia.

3)Indonesia's economic growth (5.5%) far outstrips Australia's (2.5%)

4)Indonesia's GDP per capita exceeds pre-crisis levels since 2003, Indonesia stopped taking IMF money since 2003.

5)Indonesia's poverty rate is relatively low 15% and declining fast.

@dee:

What will you think if foreigners steal your land, destroy your culture, kill your family, and kidnap your children? Will you tell yourself to "forget" the persecutions you received?

RETURN AUSTRALIA TO ABORIGINES NOW!!