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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Z268 who wrote (8950)	7/30/1999 8:46:00 AM
From: Liatris Spicata	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Stephen- I've excerpted an article by Sara Webb and S. Karene Witcher from today's WSJ. It sounds to me like relatively mild stuff in the grand scheme of things, but WSJ is making it out to be a potential threat to the stability of Singapore. Just wondering if you have any comments on the situation. Larry ================================================================== In a potentially worrying development for Singapore, ethnic clashes have broken out on the neighboring Indonesian island of Batam. Just 20 kilometers [from Singapore] Batam is home to significant Singapore business interests and is a destination for Singaporean day-trippers. Late Thursday, an aide to the Batam police said in a telephone interview from Batam that the fighting is still going on in some parts of the island. He said people involved in the disturbances are mostly armed with swords, knives and bows and arrows, while police and army personnel trying to quell the disturbances are armed with guns. The situation is still unclear, but the aide said police believe about 10 people have been killed in fighting mostly over the past two days. Several more are in hospitals in critical condition. Political, Economic Crisis The unfolding of Indonesia's political and economic crisis has fueled numerous outbreaks of violence, often ethnic in origin, across the Indonesian archipelago, resulting in heavy casualties in Ambon, Aceh, and East Timor. But until recently, Batam had appeared relatively immune to such disturbances. This week's outbreak is surprising because export-oriented Batam is fairly prosperous relative to other parts of Indonesia, while ethnic and religious tensions have not been "longstanding issues" in Batam, says Eugene Galbraith, a longtime Indonesia watcher who is now a Hong Kong-based business consultant. However, with its largely transient population of young laborers, Batam has the ingredients for ethnic foment, says Hal Hill, an economist and Indonesian specialist at the Australian National University in Canberra. The island is "basically full of immigrants and to the extent there are ethnic tensions elsewhere, they could flare up in this location because it is such a melting pot," Mr. Hill says. The clashes appear to be between groups of Indonesian migrants from Sumatra and the island of Flores, says Evan Jones, an Australian businessman who runs a tourism company on Batam. In Jakarta, Home Affairs Minister Syarwan Hamid said the unrest was merely a brawl between "thugs and pedicab drivers." ... if such disturbances continue or get worse, it "could sour the atmosphere for Singaporean investors" on Batam and make them "a little bit more jittery" about investing in Indonesia, says Mr. Hill.