Proud to be Indonesian,
You will find yourself in trouble if you persist in believing your own propaganda.

That is not the way to critically examine the history of Indonesia's independence and the extreme violence that overtook the Soekarno era when Suharto took over, nor Indonesia's brutality when attempting to hold together the Javanese domination of the region.

West Papua too will succeed in achieving Independence despite the brutal actions of the Indonesian Military as the current violence affects the continuance of the McRowran mining which provides a large amount of tax revenue for the Indonesian budget.

To read an authoritive account of the Howard / Habibe relationship over East Timor you might find a book by Paul Kelly, Editor at Large of the Australian titled " The March of Patriots" published by Melbourne University Press, a useful cronicle.

Without accepting Indonesia's shortcomings and past errors and mistakes, your country will never achieve it's full potential to improve the lives of all the people , not just the priviledged few who hold the develoopment of democracy back with continuing corruption

@maracas1:

LOL, so my point of view is automatically branded as "propaganda", while your statements are the "sacrosanct truth"? I think you need to un-learn your habit of making Oz-centric, self-gratituting, dogmatic statements.

WRT to historical examination, we Indonesians are proud of our history. And we certainly do not need moral preaching about human rights from Australians (descendents of colonialists who massacred Aborigines and stole their land).

WRT to West Papua, it is sad that you seem to express pleasure over the murder of Oz engineer Drew Grant by the barbaric Papuan separatist criminals. Thankfully, the Indonesian police have arrested the barbaric perpetrators and the mine has now functioned normally. These outrages will only strengthen the efforts of Indonesian security apparatus to crush and annihilate these barbaric criminals, to protect the people and our foreign guests. SHAME ON YOU FOR SYMPATHISING WITH CRIMINALS WHO MAKE WIDOW OUT OF DREW GRANT'S WIFE!

WRT to "March of Patriots", interesting read indeed. Here are some excrepts that further supported my points:

On Habibie's Audacity:
"In late January 1999 the Indonesian cabinet took its remarkable decision. East Timor would be offered a consultation (later defined as a referendum) on autonomy or independence. This was Habibie's personal decision; it was impetuous, audacious, dangerous and utterly stunning. Habibie had called the bluff of the old pro-Suharto establishment and the army."

On INTERFET's certain destruction if Indonesian forces wanted to destroy them:
"The opening days of the deployment were the most dangerous of Howard's prime ministership to that point. Howard expected casualties. Habibie refused to take his calls. Australian troops were told they would be targets. White says: "We were very exposed. If the militias had resisted we would have had trouble. If backed by TNI, we would have been defeated.""

Indeed, ET referendum and independence was the result of the audacious "Habibie's personal decision", and Indonesian army could have easily massacred the INTERFET had we wanted to do so.

PTBI

Your response does you no credit.

Being proud of the brutality of Indonesian Army against defenceless civilians is nothing to crow about.

WRT Australian's treatment of Aboriginal people, we are certainly not proud of the colonial treatment of the indigenous people of this country. Indeed our concern for the welfare of Indigenous people has led the present Government into further actions intended to improve the lives of Australian Aborigines, not always with success, but still persevering to tackle the problems of remoteness and disadvantage of cultural preferences.

WRT The Habibe /Howard exchanges and the hypothetical prowess of our respective armed forces,Only time will tell and the TNI should improve in time given the annual financial aid and training they receive from Australia.

@maracas1:

WRT to history, we Indonesians know everything in history happened for a reason. The events of 1965 is not result of evil plot by capitalists or "the CIA" to destroy communists, but was a combination of two factors:

1) Overzealous desire for vengeance by the Indonesian military due to the murders of seven top army generals by communists on September 30, 1965

2) Defensive reaction from religious Indonesians (Muslims+Christians+Catholics+Hindus) who reasonably believed that the commies posed an existential threat by their attempts to turn Indonesia into a communist and godless state.

WRT to Aborigines, make any excuses you want. Regardless, we Indonesians know your history. We are not interested in getting human rights lecture from a country with such terrible history of human rights abuses on Aborigines.

WRT to Indonesian military, I think the military is striving to improve its capabilities all the time regardless of any foreign aid.