Indonesia

Aceh repression

Stop arms sales to Indonesia By Harry Glass Alarmed at Indonesia's bloody war in Aceh, its military campaign in West Papua and the brutality of its armed forces, human rights organisations, peace groups, and anti-arms trade campaigners are calling for an international military embargo on Indonesia. A statement signed by 100 organisations from Europe, America, Asia and Australasia urges governments to embargo the supply of military, security and police equipment to Indonesia. It also calls for an immediate end to the military operations in Aceh and West Papua. The Indonesian military gets Hawk...

Workers of the world

by Pablo Velasco Peruvian unions defy state of emergency Zimbabwe opposition strikes Lula gets backing from right Class struggle in Israel Indonesian socialists to contest elections Peruvian unions defy state of emergency Thousands of trade unionists in Peru marched through the capital Lima last week in defiance of the government's state of emergency. In Arequipa, the second largest city, local leaders called a general strike to support the protest. There were protests in other major cities. On 27 May President Toledo imposed the state of emergency in the midst of a rising wave of discontent...

Scottish unions join up

The Scottish TUC conference unanimously voted to affiliate to the No Sweat campaign and establish links with the FNPBI in Indonesia. The motion was moved by Edinburgh TUC and seconded by Jim Swan from West Lothian TUC. It should now be easier to help trade unions and trade councils in Scotland to organise against the use of sweatshop labour, both here and internationally. Thanks also to delegates at NUT conference, held last week in Harrogate, for raising £160 towards No Sweat's work.

Indonesia: anti-union laws fight goes on

By Harry Glass Workers vowed to keep up the fight after the Indonesian government passed new anti-union laws. The anti-union laws are part of the government's drive to roll back gains made by unions since the fall of Suharto, and for an IMF-inspired flexible labour market. But unions like the National Front for the Struggle of Indonesian Workers (FNPBI) said they would not give in. FNPBI chair Dita Sari told workers at a rally outside the presidential palace in Jakarta to defy the law. "Those accepting the law are those who bow to the regime! Those accepting the law are those who bow to...

A Marxist response to capitalist globalisation

Paul Hampton speaking at AWL school 23 March 2003 on War, Imperialism and Globalisation. Globalisation is not an entirely adequate concept from a Marxist point of view, and most discussions on globalisation look at the question only from the capital side. I won't say much about the capital side, and will concentrate on the workers' side of the question. The capital side is important because globalisation involves the tendency of the internationalisation of capital. This means that firms expand out of their home market, trade and also produce in other countries, grow in size, merge and takeover...

Indonesia: New anti-union law passed

Indonesia's House of Representatives passed the Manpower Bill on 25 February. The new law is a serious attack on workers' right to strike. Other bills are in the pipeline. The new legislation states that workers must tell employers of an intention to strike. If they don't notify the bosses, the strike can be classified as illegal and a company can lock out workers and refuse to pay wages. The new law also demands all labour disputes be settled within 115 days. The employers' organisation, Apindo, wants the bill to be "enacted immediately to give legal certainty to employers and investors"...

May Day in Indonesia

An Indonesian union activist describes this year's May Day in Indonesia Yakob Nuwawea, Indonesia's Minister of Work, accused the workers' organisers of forcing the workers to demonstrate on May Day. The Government is afraid of the workers' resistance to the effects of globalisation, and especially so when the workers are take up political and international issues. The minister complained, "Why should the workers discuss foreign issues? It is nothing to do with trade union problems." In Jakarta the FNPBI union and the May Day Action Committee (KASM) organised an 8,000 strong march from three...

Crisis and revolution in Indonesia

Suharto, the strong man of southeast Asia, the dictator who came to power by wading through a sea of blood, has been forced to step down from the stage of history. The regime in Indonesia was built on the bones of murdered Communist-led workers and the incarceration of 4 million political prisoners. It is a military regime armed to the teeth by the West, including Blair’s Britain. Indonesia has been seen as a safe haven for capitalists wanting to make a quick profit for over 30 years. The corrupt state which organised massive patronage for Suharto’s family and friends was a lucrative outlet...

1965: A regime born in blood

The decisive stage of the military-backed Suharto dictatorship’s bid for power came in 1965 when, on the pretext of a (largely or wholly) invented coup attempt by the PKI, the massive Indonesian Communist Party, the army slaughtered between a half a million and a million people. The corrupt populist-nationalist government of President Sukarno had been in power since 1948 — after a struggle for independence against Dutch imperialism. The former underground nationalist resistance had declared independence in 1945 when the Japanese left. Between ‘45 and ‘48 the Dutch went to war to recolonise...

The Unfinished Revolution

The Indonesian revolution has begun. The fall of the 32 year old Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia has created big openings for independent working class politics to emerge among the island group’s 200 million people. Whether the revolution goes beyond a bourgeois democratic revolution depends on whether the workers and students are able to develop their own independent programme and fight for it. Though it has its peculiarities, Indonesia is not a feudal economy making the transition to bourgeois society. There is a massive peasantry, but also a maturing and substantial working class. It is a...

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