Internet Statement 2005-76
The renewed attack in Bali
Operations against Indonesia and its
people in resistance
Oct. 2, 2005
After many days during which the civilian population in Iraq was hit by one massacre after another, the continuation could be seen yesterday in a grave Islamistic attack, which hit Bali for the second time after 2002 and at first glance seems to be directed against tourists on this well-known island. Here, too, it pays, however, to throw light on the social development in Indonesia. It has to be questioned what the actual goals of such a butchery might be.
Again Islamistic organisations connected to ominous international "networks" are almost certainly the perpetrators of such an attack. It happens, though, in a social framework rocked by heavy unrest itself.
Today's Indonesia is also a large producer of industrial and agricultural products, as well as of diverse raw materials. After China it is one of the countries which provide the majority of the working force in manufacturing and agriculture. As a country of 240 millions of inhabitants it has tremendous weight. It belongs to those Islamic nations whose production of oil comes only to a small part of the national product, whereas the agricultural and industrial production plays a large role for Indonesia. Although it is a member of OPEC, Indonesia has meanwhile become a net importer of oil.
Towards the end of the nineties it came to a general upsurge of the mass movement, the first large movement after the annihilation campaign, which had been led against the communist party and movement, also after provocations, under Suharto in 1965-66. Time and again there were diversionary political manoeuvres. In 1998 there were instigations against the Chinese minority as the "responsibles" for the economic crisis. But also by attacks against Bali, where Hinduism and Buddhism are the main religions, with its extensive tourism, the masterminds of these attacks hope to divert. These attacks are directed against the struggle for social emancipation as well as against efforts to preserve the elbowroom versus the US and the regional allies as Australia.
The explosion of growth in Asia during the past 30 years, in particular the growth and the concentration of the world's production in China as well as in some other states as Thailand, Korea, India and Indonesia itself, too, has led to scarcity of raw materials and a surge of prices, as is known. Those nations whose predominant products are oil, natural gas and some other raw materials, are on the winning side, whereas those who are predominantly producing nations have to pay the bill. Incidentally, 30 years of retardation of the development of nuclear energy have created the correspondent gap. As for the technical development, it would have been possible to create by nuclear energy very large energy fundaments in many countries, and to enhance their autonomy by developing enrichment plants etc. But already at the first nuclear power plant which a nation wanted, there was, as a rule, headwind from the US, and when a nation wanted more than one, then the US and in earlier times temporarily also the Soviet Union started speaking words of pressure and material blackmail. Today, at any rate, the hunger for oil and natural gas affects the global economy tremendously. And it is exactly Indonesia in which according to the available informations large demonstrations against hikes in energy prices took place.
In a report by the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" of Sept. 29, 2005, it is said, for example:
"First revolts against the gas price hike have already happened on a small scale. Mainly. however, it came to long queues in front of the gas stations. People are still stocking up on the cheapest gas of whole Asia. ....'First supply bottlenecks have occurred in Indonesia and Southern China' it is said at the ADB, the Asian Development Bank. The Indonesian government wants to disburden the budget by cancelling the subventions. At a close look, it only freezes the burden at just under 9 billion $. ...Malaysia let the gas prices go up in July for the fourth time since the beginning of the year. Thailand has completely scrapped the subventions for Diesel which cost the country roughly 2 billion $ in the past 18 months."
In many Asian countries the energy prices are supported by public subventions, the possibility of which, however, is limited by the budget situation, and if there are additional burdens as now by the resolutely heightened oil prices, this system breaks down. The consequence are demonstrations, precisely also e.g. in Indonesia
"'As a large net importer of oil and a relatively energy-inefficient region, Asia is particularly vulnerable by high oil prices', says ADB's chief economist Ifzal Ali with regard to an oil price which rose for appr. 75 percent since the beginning of the year."
And this hits those parts of the population above all, which push the industrial development also in the middle sector.
"Rising consumer prices for gas, diesel and fuel hit the growing middle stratum which provides for Asia's upsurge, as well as the poor of the region who are a potential for unrest."
as the "FAZ" worries.
"In a region of the world, in which 1,85 billion people - 57 percent of the inhabitants - eke out their existence with less than one $ a day, some cents more for the bus ticket sound the end of the world." (Maybe a journalist from the "FAZ" finds such mocking words, because he lacks the idea of the situation of these masses, but some cents a day are a fortune for many people there!)
These conflicts are on the agenda in Indonesia as well as in other countries, and to a certain degree the governments are passing on to the outside this pressure coming across them from inside. So the analysis of the FAZ quite consequently leads to words of the Indian finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, who spoke of "outrageous oil prices".
"They were a reason for the failure of reaching the self-imposed growth marks: 'Well, it will mean that we will have to find the money to pay for our oil imports, which means some other investments will have to be cut, and if investment is cut it will hurt growth.' A culprit he has found, too: 'Oil-producing countries are exploiting the situation caused by the high growth rates of China, India and perhaps the US. They are making windfall profits. In the result they are impoverishing developing countries.'"
Now this is certainly the FAZ's typical wish-wash, imputing wrong finger-pointing here. In fact there are downright beneficiaries of the "politics of soil", which has been predominant for decades, politics which attributes a central role to the exploitation of the ground in the form of fuels, above all oil, which operates deliberately with the increases of energy prices and the blockade of all ways which make countries independent from this extortion. Several social forces, as for example the big Anglo-Saxon oil monopolies as well as countries like Russia or the important oil producing countries of the Arab peninsula are cashing in tremendously on this catastrophic international development. It is just right if nations like India or Indonesia knock at the door, saying that this pressure against the predominantly producing countries is unjust and must be cured.
How, then, is such an attack to be qualified which hits into the thick
of the social life of a country which is rocked by these turbulences,
as is Indonesia? It has the consequences which are known from such "terror"-operations:
the inner police regime is enforced, all forces tending to unrest are
taken under control, the demonstrations are fought and the public life
distracted.
One should not let oneself be distracted, though. How sanguinary and dirty
these attacks ever be, they should not lead to lessening the social pressure
against the domestic reactionaries as well as against the US and the rest
of those who profit from this extortionist politics of oil. The peoples
and nations as well as most of the countries are not to blame for the
lacking development of energy production during the past decades and the
bills now presented to them, for the massive blows against the forces
which sustain and develop the national economies, the working class as
well as the poor and the new middle stratum. This is not only Indonesia's
problem, but finally the problem of most developing countries.
The attention must be turned to these social questions, they must be discussed, whereas the dirty criminal attacks with their diverse aspects of impeding the social struggle in a country and upon the international level must be debunked. The whole Islamistic terror is a means of reaction in all countries. It plays, in the most different facets, into the hands of the hardest suppressive and belligerent manoeuvres of imperialism and its local allies.
Editorial staff of Neue Einheit - hd
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