KOTA KINABALU: Southeast
Asia was in 2011 bedeviled by political brinkmanship, territorial disputes,
natural disasters and the region’s more colourful and notorious figures having
their day in court.
FMT contributor Luke Hunt
offers a quick roundup of issues that made the news in 2011.
Thailand floods
Record floods devastated much
of Southeast Asia. About 2,000 people were killed across the region with
billions of dollars in losses chalked up by business primarily in Thailand with
Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and The Philippines taking a massive knock from
Mother Nature.
The UN noted Bangkok had for
years been warned about the need to develop a fully integrated approach to
flood prevention. But the biggest impediment was always convincing the
government. The rapid changes in Thailand’s leadership compromised the ability
to plot long term strategies to combat floods.
While international aid donors
were quick to react with millions of dollars of food, supplies and medicine
airlifted in, harder to shift were attitudes.
Thailand is the world’s largest
rice exporter and had expected a rice crop of about 25 million tons in 2012 and
this is now forecast to slump by a quarter. Livestock and poultry industries
also suffered heavy losses.
The global computer industry
based in Thailand is expecting a slowdown in the output of hard disk drives and
companies like Toyota suffered from disrupted supply chains that resulted in
production also being scaled back in Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
In politics, Thailand was the only
country in Southeast Asia to experience a change in leadership in 2011 after
Yingluck Shinawatra and her Pheu Thai Party won a landslide victory over Prime
Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in July.
Her win resulted in an easing
of tensions at home and across the border and paved a way home for her brother
and former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a bloodless 2006 coup.
Her victory generated an
improved political climate with Phnom Penh (Cambodia) allowing for an easing of
tensions along their border. At the 900-year-old Preah Vihear Temple at least
10 people were killed in February when fighting broke out between Cambodian and
Thai troops. A further 18 died when fighting erupted in April along other parts
of the border.
Many thought her first task
would be to negotiate an amnesty for her brother. However, Yingluck’s
priorities rapidly changed as the worst disaster (floods) since World War II
assailed the country.
Myanmar’s opening
Thirteen months ago, the
Burmese military allowed elections that resulted in the first civilian
government coming to power since 1962. The poll – despite being widely regarded
as a sham — has pushed the country in a direction welcomed by the international
community.
President Thein Sein has
revised laws on political parties, freed about 300 political prisoners, sought
a conciliatory line with pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and stunned
observers by defying one of its few allies, China.
Beijing had planned to build a
mega-dam inside Burma but the plan generated enormous local resentment,
prompting the government (Naypyidaw) to suspend construction. The government
has also legalized trade unions and eased censorship laws.
The 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) applauded the moves and decided to award the
Asean chair to Burma in 2014.
As US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton arrived on an historic visit to encourage further reforms, Aung
San Suu Kyi lent some support by announcing she would contest up-coming
by-elections once her National League for Democracy (NLD) party had been
re-registered.
However, 1,700 political
prisoners remain behind bars and complaints of human rights abuses persist
particularly in the countryside where ethnic conflicts continue, prompting
warnings that Myanmar’s ruling elite still had a long way to go before
convincing skeptics its reforms are anything but superficial.
Malaysia’s revelation
The July 9, Malaysia revealed
its other side when a group of non-governmental organisations and opposition
political parties decided to rally in support of fair elections in Malaysia.
Some 50,000 people had gathered in Kuala and few had expected the police and
politicians in Kuala Lumpur would react as harshly as they did.
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak
had initially attempted to play down the protest by Bersih 2.0 coalition of
NGOs, but changed his tune after Amnesty International described the crackdown
as the worst case of suppression seen in his country for years.
Police were deployed under
“Operation Erase Bersih”. They sealed off roads, dispatched toxic water cannons
and opened fire with tear gas as tens of thousands attempted to march towards
the iconic Merdeka Stadium.
Stampedes followed, and the
crowds dispersed into smaller groups and taunted riot police armed with batons,
guns and shields. Baton charges followed.
One man was dragged and kicked
from outside the Chinese Maternity Hospital (in Jalan Pudu) as tear gas was
fired into the hospital’s grounds and next door at Tung Shing Hospital where
protesters had sought shelter.
Opposition leader Anwar
Ibrahim, whose trial for sodomy was finally wrapped recently with a decision
scheduled on Jan 9, 2012, was injured after police fired tear gas canisters
into a tunnel.
Protesters, however, remained
defiant amid more than 1,000 arrests.
Such marches are common in
European and North American countries, Australia and New Zealand, all first
world nations – a club that Malaysia has aspirations of joining by 2020.
Malaysia – decent Asyraf
Also notable is the Malaysian
who was caught in the London riot.
Out of the despair of the
London riots one young Malaysian deservedly won himself a place among the top
stories of the year for simply being decent.
Soft spoken Asyraf Haziq Rosli
deservedly won himself a place among the top stories of the year for simply
being decent.
Stunned and bleeding, Asyraf
was filmed being helped to his feet after being beaten in East London at the
height of the August riots.
The cameras also caught his
supposed rescuers rifling through his backpack and stealing what they could
grab.
At least three million viewers
watched the cowardly act on You Tube while Asyraf was applauded for his
response.
“I feel sorry for them,” the
20-year-old from Kuala Lumpur had told a news conference.
“It was really sad, for among
them were children, boys in primary school. It was quite shocking.”
He initially suffered a broken
jaw and lost some teeth in the attack and needed an operation after some 100
youths charged at him and a friend while they were pushing their bikes to a
friend’s house.
The riots erupted after British
Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced
massive spending cuts and introduced University fees of up to US$14,000 per
student per year.
Cameron in reference to
Asyraf’s plight, said it was a “disgusting sight” that highlighted how things
were “badly wrong in our society”.
Indonesia – Terrorist arrested
Almost nine years after
bombings by Islamic militants left 202 people dead on the idyllic Indonesian
island of Bali, the last of the bombers was finally arrested signaling an end
to a historic manhunt and the War on Terror in Southeast Asia as defined by the
first decade of this century.
Omar Patek was captured by
Pakistani authorities in January following an apparent tip-off from United
States intelligence. Information surrounding his arrest was not released until
two months later.
The arrest afforded some
closure for the relatives of victims and survivors of a tragic episode that
heralded what became known as the Second Front in the War on Terrorism,
covering Southeast Asia.
In May, Osama bin Laden was
killed.
A prominent member of Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI), Patek was a deputy field commander at the time of the first
Bali bombing, committed amid calls by JI for an Islamic caliphate across
Southeast Asia.
A tape reportedly made by Osama
bin Laden also said the bombings were in retaliation of Australia’s support of
the United States’ War on Terror and Australia’s role in winning independence
for Christian East Timor. Eighty-eight Australians died in the twin blasts.
An explosives expert, Patek was
also wanted in Australia, the United States and in the Philippines. He has
since been returned to Indonesia where he is about to stand trial.
Spratly disputes
Southeast Asian nations have
witnessed a disconcerting rise in tensions over the Spratly and Paracel Islands
as China’s gained in the economic and military ascendancy.
Tensions this year were at
their worst yet with Chinese belligerence over this issue leading to violent
protests in Vietnam.
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei,
Taiwan and the Philippines have also staked their claims over the chain.
Chinese claims are ambitious
and in regards to the Spratlys lie across a sea and largely within the 200 mile
limit of Philippines and a political stone’s throw from Malaysia and Brunei.
China’s Foreign Ministry
spokesman Ma Zhaoxu insisted China held “indisputable sovereignty” over the
island chain despite the geographical realities. None of its neighbours agree.
Still, Asean and China agreed
to heed to the Declaration of Conduct (DOC) which China described “as an
important milestone document on the cooperation among China and Asean
countries.”
The DOC is a framework for
future deliberations on territorial claims on the islands. It was signed way
back, in 2002.
In Hanoi, rare protests were
allowed, in the lead-up to an Asean Regional Forum (ARF) in Bali that was
dominated by China’s Spratly stance. There was also a push to drop recognition
of the name ‘South China Sea’.
Manila is now referring to it
as the West Philippine Sea, the Vietnamese call it the East Sea.
Philippines tragedy
Over in the Southern
Philippines where decades of unrest destroyed any semblance of normal life, a
year-end tropical storm piled further havoc on the misery being felt there.
The storm triggered flash
floods that officials said killed over 1,000 people and left many missing.
An army spokesman said many
villagers on the north coast of Mindanao island were swept into the sea after
Tropical Storm Washi brought heavy rain.
Iligan and Cagayan de Oro
cities were hard hit. Television pictures of the aftermath showed smashed homes
and cars and debris strewn across streets and clogging drainage canals.
Entire villages were swept into
the sea by flash floods. The Philippines are struck by about 20 major storms
every year but most of them take a more northerly track, hitting Luzon island.
Typhoons Nesat and Nalgae
battered the country within days of each other in September, leaving more than
100 people dead. Both storms struck Luzon.
Cambodia – Pol Pot in court
The Khmer Rouge Tribunal
finally got into full swing with three surviving leaders of Pol Pot’s regime in
a UN-endorsed court for crimes against humanity.
Case 002 got off to a low key
start when compared with the first trial which secured the tribunal’s first
conviction. Arguments and testimony presented before the Extraordinary Chambers
of the Courts in Cambodia (ECCC) were startling, with prosecutors focusing on
the immediate forced evacuation of Phnom Penh and urban centres around the
country after the Khmer Rouge seized control in April 1975.
Predictably, those in the dock
were Nuon Chea, the brother of a one-time head of state Khieu Samphan – and
former Foreign Minister Leng Sary. Both have denied the charges.
Nuon Chea claimed the
Vietnamese were to blame for the atrocities, including genocide, committed in
Cambodia.
Between 1.7 million and 2.2
million people died under Pol Pot’s rule that ended in January 1979 when
invading Vietnamese forces pushed the Khmer Rouge into remote pockets of the
country-side.
The court heard that beatings
with rattans, the use of pincers to pull nails, noses and ear lobes,
electrocution and suffocation were common. Labourers toiled in fields until
their legs were eaten away by salt water. Tales of disembowelment and
cannibalism were numerous.
Other issues in Cambodia that
also grabbed the attention of long time observers was construction of a massive
airstrip in the central province of Kampong Chhnang, which was funded by and
built for the Chinese government, supporters of the Khmer Rouge throughout the
Cold War. Tens of thousands were marched to the air strip and ordered to work.
Conditions were so bad that many opted for suicide, choosing to leap under
passing trucks.
Singapore’s polls
In Singapore, thick skins have
always been in short supply. British author Alan Shadrake found this out when
he was jailed simply for producing a book on executions in the island-state.
In most countries the loss of a
handful of seats at a general election that had little or no impact on the
overall governing of the state would merit little attention.
But in Singapore where the
authorities have for years’ encouraged nothing but whole-hearted support such
losses seemed tragic.
At the 16th parliamentary
elections in May the opposition polled better than ever before.
The People’s Action party
(PAP), which has been in office ever since independence in 1965, won a reduced
overall 60 percent of the vote down from 67 percent in 2006. Still PAP managed
to hold on to 81 out of 87 seats.
Housing shortages, problems
with public transport, a growing wealth gap and immigration were blamed on the
PAP’s worst performance in its history.
Singapore’s ruling elite is not
used to criticism.
Lee Kuan Yew — Singapore’s
founding father and longest serving Prime Minister and now Minister Mentor –
was upset by the result and resigned.
His son, Prime Minister Lee
Hsien Loong described the poll as a watershed saying: “There will still be a
few who are against us, whatever we say. And some of these may have different
views from the PAP.
Others will want to displace
us. But the issue is not policies or whether we are doing right or wrong, but
who is in charge, in power.”
Australia and people smuggling
For Australia, the year began
much the same way as it ended. People smuggling and illegal immigration
dominated its agenda with Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia, Indonesia and
Thailand.
A refugee swap with Malaysia
was struck down by Australia’s High Court as overloaded boats ferrying human
cargo from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Sri Lanka continued to land.
This led to the December
sinking of a boat off Indonesia with more than 100 lives lost.
However, Prime Minister Julia
Gillard insists a deal with Malaysia along with a regional solution remains the
best way to combat people smuggling.
More than 1,200 asylum seekers
are being held in detention facilities on Christmas Island off Australia’s
northeast coast amid reports that people smugglers had moved their bases from
much harder to reach places, including Laos.
Free Malaysia Today
Business & Investment Opportunities
