AUGUST 2003
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Wednesday, 27th August,2003
THE LOST CHILDREN OF REUNION
And now to the island of lost children - Reunion, a French province in the Indian Ocean. In the 1960s, it was facing population growth and endemic unemployment. As a solution, hundreds of children were sent to depopulated, rural regions in France. But as Fanou Filali reports, that solution has come back to haunt both the children and the French Government.
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Wednesday, 27th August,2003
ALFRED SASAKO INTERVIEW
Alexander Downer's office today replied by fax that the May negotiations had not been raised with them and that this was a matter for the Solomons Islands and Indonesian governments. To shed further light on this story, Mark Davis spoke earlier today to Alfred Sasako, Solomon Island's opposition spokesman on foreign affairs who is in Brisbane.
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Wednesday, 27th August,2003
SOLOMONS RIDDLE
For almost three years, the Solomon Islands Government has been asking Australia for assistance. It wanted troops to help quell serious unrest between warring factions there. Those requests were mostly ignored and even specifically rejected at the beginning of this year. Suddenly in June, it was all systems go although little had changed in the Islands themselves. So what happened just a few months ago to cause Australia to do an about-face and lead a peacekeeping force to the Solomons?
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Wednesday, 27th August,2003
TERRY HICKS INTERVIEW
With the focus on the terror attacks in Iraq, Indonesia and now India, there has been little sympathy for the fate of David Hicks, an alleged Australian terrorist captured in Afghanistan. His father, Terry Hicks, recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan, where he attempted to discover the truth about his son. Mark Davis caught up with him in Adelaide.
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Wednesday, 27th August,2003
THE LOST CHILDREN OF RéUNION
Jean-Pierre Gosse was 14-years-old when he became a modern-day slave to a family in the French countryside. Sent to France in the hope of a better life – schooling and a job – he instead ended up labouring for 16 hours a day, unpaid and living in primitive conditions. Gosse was one of 1600 children sent from the tiny French island of Réunion to revive the fortunes of a depopulated French countryside in the 1960s.
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On SBS Television’s DATELINEon Wednesday, August 27 at 8.30pm Fanou Filali reports on the lost children of Réunion.
Over a 15-year period in the 1960s children were transported from Réunion, an island in the Indian ocean which is a region of France. They were sent to farming families in central France which were in need of cheap labour.
Many of the children’s parents claim that they were taken without their permission. They say a paternalistic French government stole them from their families.
The children, and their parents, were told that they would receive an education and would be able to go back to Réunion on holiday. Alix Hoair, who worked for the government department in charge of the migration program says the state failed them: “The truth is those children were promised holidays that never eventuated. They were promised high school and never got it. I can’t see how the state can deny that. Promises weren’t kept.”
Children who ran away from their foster families confided in Hoair: “They said ‘We work 20 hours a day for no pay. We’re not slaves, we’d rather cut sugar cane at Réunion than work here’.” When Hoair wrote a letter to the authorities, expressing his concerns about the migration scheme, he lost his job.
Only after one of the children from Réunion recently decided to sue the French government was an official inquiry ordered into the migration policy. For Jean-Pierre, who tried to kill himself three times to escape the misery of his existence as a teenager, the report was a whitewash and he is also now suing the French government: “I want people to know. I want to denounce France, the mother country.” -
Wednesday, 20th August,2003
LUKE BAKER INTERVIEW
Joining Mark Davis with the latest from Baghdad - Reuters correspondent Luke Baker.
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Wednesday, 20th August,2003
IRAQ BACKGROUNDER
Yesterday at least 17 people died when a truck bomb exploded at the lightly guarded UN compound. Amongst the victims was UN special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian career diplomat, well known for his work in East Timor. While today is a time of grief, this explosion is likely to have ongoing dramatic effects in Iraq, at the United Nations and in the United States. Geoff Parish provides some background from Bagdad.
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Wednesday, 20th August,2003
IRAQ SWEET IRAQ
Within the last few minutes we’ve received reports of a grenade attack in a Baghdad hotel. We’ll be crossing to the Iraqi capital as soon as we can to get more details on this event. But first, yesterday’s bombing left no doubt that all foreigners have become targets in the guerilla war being waged in Iraq - even those who are trying to rebuild vital services for the nation. Iraqi infrastructure is being sabotaged as quickly as it is restored. Hassan Janabi, an Iraqi Australian, is at the centre of this crisis. Hassan, a water engineer from Sydney, has returned to his homeland after 25 years in exile to take on a senior role in rebuilding Iraq. Olivia Rousset spent three weeks following Hassan as he attempted to juggle the dangers of his job, the demands of his American bosses and the needs of his own people.
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Wednesday, 13th August,2003
A.M. HENDROPRIYONO INTERVIEW
Apart from the President herself, there is no minister more involved in recent events than the chief of Indonesian intelligence Hendropriyono. Mark Davis spoke to him about the likelihood of further terror attacks here in Jakarta and some of the issues raised in tonight’s program.
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Wednesday, 13th August,2003
UNEASY ALLIES
Australia’s willingness to engage internationally on the war on terror has led it recently to re-engage with the military here. But the US has not been so willing. Last night, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage claimed that it would be premature for America to reopen training and funding links with the Indonesian military until the deaths of two Americans in another supposed terrorist attack in West Papua last year is resolved.
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Tonight’s story is likely to shed very significant light upon that incident and poses very pertinent questions about other terrorist attacks in Indonesia, including this one.
Until tonight, the American survivors in the attack in West Papua have maintained a media silence. In their first television interview, they spoke with Dateline’s Ginny Stein and their testimony raises very serious doubts about the role of the Indonesian military. -
Wednesday, 13th August,2003
A TALE OF TWO ISLAMS
Well, the victims here weren’t American or Australian businessmen, it was Indonesian taxi-drivers and hotel workers who bore the brunt of this campaign, supposedly in the name of Islam. David O’Shea reports on the impact this bomb has had upon the lives of ordinary Indonesians and upon the group that’s broadly suspected of being involved in its execution - Jemaah Islamiah.
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Wednesday, 13th August,2003
BAMBANG HARYMURTI INTERVIEW
Jakarta is still very much on edge with the Amrozi sentencing, the ongoing trial of Jemaah Islamiah’s spiritual leader, the investigation here still continuing and now more attacks expected. With Mark Davis to discuss these issues and the mood of the city is Bambang Harymurti, the editor of ’Tempo’ - Jakarta’s most respected current affairs magazine.
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Wednesday, 13th August,2003
UNEASY ALLIES - AMERICA AND INDONESIA
“Real partners in the fight against terrorism do not murder American citizens. And they do not conspire to cover up such murders," American senator Russell Feingold.
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On SBS Television’s DATELINE on Wednesday, August 13 at 8.30pm, in a television exclusive, Ginny Stein speaks to the American survivors of an attack which killed three teachers in the Indonesian controlled region of West Papua last year. One of them, Patsy Spier, who witnessed the death of her husband Rick, has successfully lobbied the American government to cut part of its military training budget to Indonesia.
The shooting has severely tested relations between Washington and Jakarta at a time when the US is keen to engage Indonesia in the war on terror. Australia has also been grappling with the issue of whether to establish links with Indonesia’s military. It was announced this Monday that the Australian military would resume training exercises with Kopassus, Indonesia’s Special Forces Unit, which were suspended in 1999.
On August 31, 2002 two Americans and an Indonesian who worked as teachers at the remote Freeport McMoran copper and gold mine were shot dead in an ambush. They were travelling in a two-vehicle convoy on the only road between the mine and the outside world. Gunmen fired over two hundred rounds of ammunition into both cars. Patsy, who was travelling in the car behind her husband, survived but the Indonesian teacher sitting next to her died. The mining company pays the Indonesian military to secure the road (over $US40 million since 1973) and two thousand military personnel are currently employed in its protection. Two senior executives passed the ambush site minutes before the teachers were killed.
Steve Emma, another survivor of the attack who was travelling in the car carrying Rick Spier and newly appointed principal Ted Burgon, describes how anyone using the road had to fill out military paperwork detailing his or her identity and movements.
The Indonesian military immediately blamed the attack on Papua’s separatist rebels but Indonesia’s civil police implicated the Indonesian military itself in a preliminary investigation led by Police Chief Made Pastika (who has since investigated the Bali bombings). The Indonesian military then conducted its own investigation into the killings and found no evidence of wrongdoing. At this point, Patsy realised she had to act and began a one-woman political assault on Washington. She called on the government to block the release of military training funds that had been frozen for more than a decade, in particular a program known as IMET or International Military Education and Training.
On August 7, Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage announced that the Bush administration was attaching tough new conditions to the release of the IMET aid. Specifically the administration wants greater Indonesian cooperation in investigating the Freeport killings, the Bali bombings and in countering terrorism. -
Wednesday, 6th August,2003
MIDDLE EAST DEBATE
Yesterday the Americans brought out the big stick, threatening to cut loan guarantees to Israel over construction of the new security fence dividing Israelis from Palestinians. To further discuss the road map and America’s role in it, Mark Davis is joined from London by author and commentator Tariq Ali, who will be in Australia next week and in Melbourne by visiting Israeli Professor Barry Rubin, editor of the ’Middle East Review’.
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Wednesday, 6th August,2003
ROADBLOCK TO PEACE
Now to the Middle East, and the newest peace plan, the so-called ’road map’, is already facing its first challenges. There are fears that one of its key conditions, a Palestinian cease-fire, will break down within days, following threats by militant Palestinian groups and the wounding of four Jewish settlers three days ago. For Israel’s part, dismantling the settlements in the occupied territories may be an equally difficult pledge to keep. Matt Carney goes inside Israel’s settlements and outposts to examine the role they play in current Israeli politics.
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Wednesday, 6th August,2003
WIMAR WITOELAR INTERVIEW
Mark Davis spoke with Indonesian commentator Wimar Witoelar a short time ago from Jakarta, on the impact of the bombing on that city and the nation.
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Wednesday, 6th August,2003
MARRIOTT BLAST BACKGROUNDER
Jakarta is still reeling from the bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel and on high alert for tomorrow’s sentencing of alleged Bali bomber Amrozi. Irene Ulman provides some background to this Indonesian crisis.
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Wednesday, 6th August,2003
ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS - ROADBLOCK TO PEACE?
On DATELINE, August 6th at 8.30pm Matthew Carney looks at how Israeli settlements and outposts have become a major obstacle to a peace in the Middle East. Carney also looks at the emergence of a younger generation of settlers who are proving to be even more radical than their parents.
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The US-backed “Roadmap” peace plan, currently being negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinians, requires the demolition of 60 settlement outposts and the freezing of established settlements. The Israeli government has been slow to act. The Israeli army demolished eight outposts but since then the settlers have established ten more.
In the last two years the hilltop youth, as they have become known, have established 100 new outposts in the West Bank. They want to turn them into permanent settlements and are prepared to fight the Israeli army to defend their positions. Many Israeli settlers in the West Bank believe that the only solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict is to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank and send them to Arab countries. There are currently two million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
It is the more established settlements, however, that will be the real obstacle to peace. Typical is Ariel, created in the northern West Bank in 1978 and now with 18,000 people inhabiting its middle class suburbs. Ron Nackman, Mayor of Ariel, wants to increase its size by five times. Despite the freeze on settlement growth Nackman continues to bring in Russian immigrants to live at Ariel to realise this dream. Ignorant of the fact they will be living in a settlement in the Occupied Territories the Russians come because of the economic opportunities – not for religious reasons.
Nackman credits his close friend Ariel Sharon, now Prime Minister, with creating the settlement movement, “He was the father of all the settlements in Judea and Samaria.” In the 1970s Sharon colonised the West Bank with settlements to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state.
Labour Party politician Youly Tamir says that the settlements have taken up so much of the West Bank there is no space left for a viable Palestinian state, “There’s no space for a Palestinian state within the framework of the settlements. If you look at a map with my first speech in parliament I said to Sharon assuming you want a Palestinian state just point to where it would be and he had no answer because there is no place.”
That’s DATELINE, this Wednesday August 6th at 8.30pm.
