Vol. 74/No. 44      November 22, 2010

Home to 235 million people, Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country. The sale of agricultural commodities and exports of minerals have made a layer of capitalists and landlords very rich, but the millions of workers, peasants, and small producers who create these goods generally live in conditions of grinding poverty.

Sixty-five years after winning independence, Indonesia remains a semicolonial country indebted to and dominated by the billionaire rulers of the United States, Japan, Australia, and other imperialist powers. In response to the twin disasters that started in October, pledges of aid from these governments have amounted to a few million dollars.

The legacy of this class exploitation and inequality includes the flimsy buildings, lack of roads and vehicles, and woefully inadequate emergency responses that have exposed fishing and farming communities to the full force of the destructive power of nature.  
 
Earthquake and tsunami
The tsunami unleashed by the earthquake that struck off the west coast of Sumatra on the morning of October 25 spent much of its fury on the nearby Mentawai islands. While some people escaped to higher and safer ground, others were left at the mercy of waves, some of which were 10 feet high.

According to officials, some 445 people were killed in the wave and its aftermath—more than half of them on North Pagai Island. “Officials said hundreds of wooden and bamboo homes had been washed away in more than 20 villages, displacing more than 20,000 people,” reported the November 1 Guardian. Thousands have been left without shelter or food while food and other supplies pile up in other islands.

Some of the 15,000 people made homeless by the tsunami had been “surviving on yams and bananas,” said Demas Sakerebau, a village chief on North Pagai Island, according to the November 2 Telegraph newspaper.

Indonesian officials had admitted that “only a fraction [of] the food, water, tents, medicine and blankets that have reached nearby ports have been distributed to survivors,” reported the British-based paper.

The government, said the Telegraph, blamed “bad weather and a lack of boats and helicopters”—the only effective means of transport in an area without regular air links with Sumatra. Boats are the main form of transport among and to the islands. Roads are often little more than tracks used by companies that log the tropical forests, often employing workers from Sumatra.

Many of the native peoples survive through subsistence farming and fishing. Others earn some cash supplying services and goods to the growing numbers of surfers and other tourists.  
 
Warning system
Claims and counterclaims have surrounded the emergency tsunami warning system constructed after the massive earthquake and tsunami of December 26, 2004. Of the 225,000 or more people in 14 nations who died in that disaster, more than half were in Aceh and other parts of northern Sumatra.

The German-based manufacturers of the system denied claims by at least one Indonesian official that buoys designed to sense the passing tsunami had failed. While Sumatra was alerted in time, they said, the Mentawai islands were too close to the earthquake's center to allow time for useful warnings.

On November 1 the Guardian stated that “financial constraints” had placed limits on the warning system from the start. Citing a German scientist working with the Indonesian government, the UK-based newspaper said that “the early warning system covered only larger areas of population.” The Mentawai islands are home to 35,000 people.

“Indonesia could only afford to install 10 of the expensive, hi-tech buoys” used in the system, reported the Guardian, noting that “few villages on the islands have electricity and mobile phones are rare, so passing on warnings is difficult.”

One day after the earthquake and 800 miles to the east, in central Java, Mountain Merapi, known as “Fire Mountain,” began a series of violent eruptions that sent rocks, lava, and gas tumbling down the mountain’s 9,600-foot slopes.

The mountain has a record of deadly eruptions, including in 1930 when 1,300 people lost their lives. In spite of that, its slopes and surrounding area are populated by farming families and villages. Many were still in harm’s way on November 5 when the most violent of the latest series of eruptions occurred, tripling the death toll to well over 100.

Pledges of aid from the imperialist powers have been doled out with an eyedropper. The New Zealand government has supplied US$354,000, while the Australian government has pledged less than $1 million. Washington and the European Union—made up of the continental European imperialist powers—have pledged $2 million each.

On the eve of a trip to Indonesia and several other nations in Asia, U.S. president Barack Obama had little to say about the tsunami and volcano that have taken more than 550 lives, or about Indonesia’s crippling and unpayable foreign debt of $180 billion, which serves to transfer wealth created by Indonesia’s toilers to the imperialist capitals. Japanese-based financial institutions hold 20 percent of this debt; 11.7 percent is held in the United States—a bit less than Singapore, which acts as a clearing house for foreign investors in Asia.

As reported by the November 6 Washington Post, Obama had his eyes on profits. Howard Schneider wrote, “In plotting a path to boost U.S. exports, the Obama administration has turned a keen eye to the trillions of dollars Indonesia and other Asian nations plan to spend on power plants, transportation and other infrastructure in coming years, expecting it to boost American makers of heavy equipment and other top companies.”
 
 
Related articles:
Indonesia disaster is man-made  
 
 
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