Xanana's big announcement

(Backtrack to 1999. Xanana Gusmao and the author. Gusmao had just been released from gaol in Jakarta.. but was still being held under house arrest in Jakarta. I had just conducted an interview with the East Timorese leader.)

East Timor's politics has suddenly got very interesting indeed with President Xanana Gusmao announcing he's ready to become the troubled country's prime minister, after he ceases to be head of state.

Gusmao will not seek re-election in East Timor's presidential election on April 9th - instead he intends to join a newly formed political party after the vote.

"By becoming prime minister, there will be hope for change for the people. I will seek to improve everything," he has told AFP. During many past interviews, Gusmao has confided he has no stomach for leadership and would rather be a pumpkin farmer.

East Timor's current premier, Jose Ramos-Horta, is the favourite to win the presidential election. After that, a legislative poll is supposed to follow, but a date for it has yet to be set.

As a guerilla leader, Gusmao fought Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor and enjoys hero status amongst his people.

Ramos-Horta spent the entire Indonesian occupation in exile as leader of the country's independence movement and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

The two men could end up swapping their current jobs if elections go their way.

But expect fierce campaigning from East Timor's biggest political party, Fretilin, and regrettably expect more violence.

Book Review

I've been absolutely chuffed with the response to my book Running Amok. Since release four months ago I've been interviewed on radio, appeared at writers festivals in Brisbane and Townsville and on tour in Sydney and the Gold Coast. Book reviews appearing in magazines and newspapers have been highly supportive. Wow!

Here's a sample:

“A wonderful account of the strange life of an overseas reporter.
Bowling has managed to present the public face of a broadcast journalist
while showing the complex, often fraught everyday life that is lead by
those who report from foreign countries.”
-Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald

This very encouraging review appeared on The Swanker just prior to Christmas..
(who is the Swanker? .. to quote from the site "..the name of this blog is more a tongue-in-cheek reference to a popular stereotype of the typical Sydneysider - shallow, ever in pursuit of money and beholden to all things glitzy.. " But I suspect there's nothing shallow about The Swanker. He's led an interesting life so far. Quoting again from his site: " ..I was born in Brunei, a small Malay sultanate in South East Asia, to Chinese parents. I spent some time in England as a child then moved permanently to Australia with may family when I was sixteen. My interest in South East Asia stems from my own upbringing there and my fascination with the ideas of culture, race, religion - particularly how all these things mingle and interact to form notions of ethnicity, identity and nationality."


Anyway.. this review from The Swanker..

Running Amok by Mark Bowling

Hachette Livre Australia were kind enough to recently send me a copy of Running Amok by Mark Bowling, the ABC's former Indonesia correspondent. Subtitled When News Deadlines, Family and Foreign Affairs Collide, the book recounts Mark's personal experiences during his stationing in Indonesia - from 1998 to 2002 - one of the most eventful periods in the country's history.
The book takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride across the far-flung archipelago, from the toppling of President Suharto in Jakarta, to Aceh, Kalimantan, Ambon, West Papua and of course, East Timor. The book documents in detail Mark's visits to that long-suffering territory as it finally achieved independence, but, as Mark emotionally describes, not without great suffering and death.
Interspersed between episodes of Mark and his crew dodging soldiers, running into the middle of riots or interviewing Islamic extremists, Running Amok also offers insight into the more mundane aspects of the foreign correspondent's job - the deadlines, the script-writing, the long hours working through the night.
Mark also highlights the difficulties of being constantly away from his young family, the pressure his marriage came under and the tragedy of a lost child. His was a job that put immense strain on family relationships like few other jobs did and the personal nature of the book is its real strength.
Indonesia-watchers will enjoy this book for the insights into the tumultuous events of the post-Suharto period. Budding journalists will either be thrilled by the stories of adventure and reportage from the front lines, or mortified by the personal and emotional commitment the job demands.
Running Amok is set amidst the grand political drama of Suharto's resignation, turmoil in the provinces and the creation of a new nation, but it never loses sight of the fact that, in the end, it's all about people - Mark's own family, and the ordinary Indonesian people he encountered. Separated by only a few hundred miles water we might be, but most Indonesians and Australians live on totally different worlds.
Riots and mass killings are not the chirpiest subject-matter for holiday reading, but Running Amok reminded me of how fortunate I am to be where I am. And during the Christmas/New Year season when getting overwhelmed with presents and parties is so easy, that's probably not such a bad thing.
Other recent books by Australians about Indonesia:
A Woman of Independence, by Kirsty Sword Gusmao
Indonesia's Secret War in Aceh, by John Martinkus
In the Shadow of Swords, by Sally Neighbour

A vote for peace... we hope so.

"The outside world knows very little about Aceh's rich past.. mainly because of the decades of fighting."

Today the people of the Indonesian province of Aceh go to the polls in historic local elections. It's a democratic breakthrough that follows the signing of a peace agreement last year between separatist rebels and the Indonesian government ending almost 30 years of bloodshed.
Aceh has endured a tumultuous history, with the separatist conflict which ended last year just the latest in a long line of violent upheavals. As a correspondent, I visited Aceh at the height of some of the worst fighting and saw the the terrible results of war. There are no winners.. but at least something positive is now happening in the form of elections. Ironically it took the worst of natural disasters to shape this latest chapter in Aceh's history - the peace accord which paved the way for the polls was spurred by the December 26, 2004 tsunami, which killed an estimated 169,000 people in the province.




ABC Cameraman Dave Anderson (left) and myself during a visit to Aceh's grand mosque in the capital Banda Aceh, 2000.







The outside world knows very little about Aceh's rich past.. mainly because of the decades of fighting. Journalists were either banned or restricted from entering Aceh for long periods of time. I was lucky enough to visit Aceh on many occasions soon after President Suharto was toppled in 1998. I met with rebel guerillas and civic leaders who were instrumental in shaping the events now going on. I have written about some of these exciting trips and close encounters in my book Running Amok

Shut your eyes and think of Aceh.. if it's a complete blank here are some facts courtesy of AFP:

POPULATION: About 4.5 million (before tsunami)
GEOGRAPHY: Aceh stretches over 55,390 square kilometers (21,390 square miles) on the westernmost tip of Sumatra island.
CAPITAL: Banda Aceh.
LANGUAGE: Indonesian, Acehnese.
RELIGION: Muslim (97.6 percent), Christian (1.7 percent), Hindu (0.08 percent), Buddhist (0.55 percent).
ECONOMY: Coconuts, coffee, timber, tobacco, oil and natural gas.
HISTORY: In the 16th century Aceh was an important trading center and seat of Islamic learning. Its power began to decline over the next century, but it remained independent of the Dutch who dominated the rest of the Indonesian archipelago.
In 1873 the Netherlands declared war on Aceh after negotiating a treaty in which Britain withdrew any objections to their occupation of the region.
The first Dutch force of 7,000 retreated when its commander, General Kohler, was killed. A new army contingent, twice as large, succeeded in taking the capital, the central mosque and the sultan's palace but the war dragged on for 35 years before the last sultan, Tuanku Muhammad Daud, surrendered.
Even then no Dutch area was safe from guerrilla attack from the Acehnese until the Dutch surrendered to Japan in 1942.
The Japanese were welcomed at first but resistance soon sprang up. This period saw the Islamic Party, which had been formed in 1939 under the leadership of Daud Beureuh, emerge as a political force.
With the proclamation of the Indonesian republic in 1945, Aceh was given special territory status but in 1951 Jakarta dissolved the province and incorporated it into the mainly Christian province of North Sumatra.
Angry at the move, Beureuh proclaimed Aceh an independent Islamic Republic in September 1953.
This lasted until 1961 when military and religious leaders fell out. The central government resolved the conflict by returning the status of special province to Aceh.
In 1976 a separatist group, the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement) was established to fight for an independent Islamic state.
Aceh was declared a military operation area in 1988 and Indonesian troops were deployed to quash the separatist movement. Soldiers have since been accused by human rights groups of widespread violations.
Operations were stepped up in May 2003 after the collapse of a brief truce prompted the government to impose 12 months of martial law.
The Indian Ocean tsunami disaster on December 26, 2004 devastated the region, killing an estimated 169,000 people, destroying entire towns and pulverising its infrastructure and industry.
The catastrophe however encouraged both the rebels and the government to return to the negotiating table and in August 2005 they signed a peace deal in Helsinki.
The accord paved the way for Monday's elections, the first in Indonesia to allow the participation of candidates without links to Jakarta-based political parties.