Manufacturing a crisis

Food First

Subtitled 'The politics of food aid in Indonesia', this report says Indonesia became the world's largest food aid recipient in a 'manufactured crisis' sparked by economic collapse but exacerbated by misguided development. Food aid to the world's fourth most-populous nation should be severely reduced 'and redirected to truly starving countries such as North Korea'. Indonesia needs 'not food aid but economic and agricultural reforms of a fundamental kind.' The US, Canada, Australia and other donors sought to open long-term markets for their surplus wheat and rice. When it became clear that the influx of cheap food was not needed in much of the countryside, aid officials diverted the flow to Indonesia's slums 'to pacify a restive urban population' and boost the ruling Golkar party. (IPS, 2 August 1999)

The Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First), Development Report No 13, July 1999, US$10.00 (inc p/h), 398 60th Street, Oakland, CA 94618, USA, tel +1-510-654 4400, www.foodfirst.org/pubs/.

Indonesia's fires and haze

David Glover & Timothy Jessup (eds)

Forest fires in Indonesia in mid-1997 spread thick clouds of smoke to neighbouring countries. They were one of the century's worst environmental disasters. The study's summary findings were widely quoted and played an important role in policy discussions in the region. The 1997 fires caused damage conservatively estimated at over US$3 billion, rising to over US$4.4 billion by February 1998. 'This is more than the damages for the Exxon Valdez oil spill and India's Bhopal chemical spill combined. The resources lost would have been more than enough to provide basic sanitation, water and sewage services for Indonesia's 120 million rural poor', says David Glover.

Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, July 1999, 168pp, soft ISBN 981-230-006-6, US$17.00, hard ISBN 981-230-021-X US$36.00, www.iseas.edu.sg/pub.html, or for Canada, US, Europe from IDRC www.idrc.ca/books (soft only).

East Timor - The price of freedom

John G Taylor

Updated and much expanded edition of the classic Indonesia's forgotten war that tells the story of what happened afer President Suharto's overthrow. The new government conceded the right of the UN to organise the long delayed referendum giving the East Timorese a choice. At the very moment the historic vote was being counted, armed gangs organised by the Indonesian military plunged the island into an orgy of killing, burning and forced flight. John Taylor analyses the world's reaction to this new genocide of the East Timorese people, the despatch of a peacekeeping force, and the prospects of independence.

London: Zed Books, 1999, 272pp, hbk ISBN 1-85649-840-9 Rrp Stg 45/ US$65, pbk ISBN 1-85649-841-7 Rrp Stg 14.95/ US$22.50 +p/h; Zed, tel +44-171-837 4014, fax +44-171-833 3960, email sales@zedbooks.demon.co.uk, www.zedbooks.demon.co.uk.

Feet to the fire - CIA covert operations in Indonesia, 1957-1958

Kenneth Conboy & James Morrison

More than forty years ago the Central Intelligence Agency began a top-secret covert action campaign designed to hold Indonesia's left-leaning President Sukarno's feet to the fire and prevent a strategic crossroad from falling into the communist camp. In a fast-paced, engrossing narrative evoking the novels of John LeCarre and Graham Greene, the authors provide the first unclassified, detailed case study of an operation

that has escaped public scrutiny for decades.

United States Naval Institute, Special Warfare Series, 1999, 232pp, hbk ISBN 1557501939, Rrp US$28.95

A tour of duty - Changing patterns of military politics in Indonesia in the 1990s

Douglas Kammen & Siddharth Chandra

A study of the internal dynamics of the Indonesian military in the decade and a half leading up to Suharto's resignation. Against existing personality-based analyses, it argues that the increasingly frequent personnel changes were a response to structural changes within the military as an institution. The analysis highlights several forms of institutional rationalisation within the army as well as new dilemmas resulting from these structural changes.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, July 1999, 99pp, ISBN 0-87763-049-6, Rrp US$15.00.

Pemilu - The 1999 Indonesian election

Susan Blackburn (ed)

Papers presented at a 25 June 1999 seminar in Melbourne mainly by Australian observers at the elections held less than three weeks before. Speakers included Damien Kingsbury, Arief Budiman, Gerry van Klinken, Ed Aspinall, Vanessa Johanson, Richard Chauvel, Simon Philpott, Marcus Mietzner, and Susan Blackburn.

Melbourne: Monash Asia Institute, Annual Indonesia Lecture Series no.22, 1999, 110pp, ISBN 0-7326-1182-2 (quarto), www.monash.edu.au/mai.

Figures of criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines and colonial Vietnam

Vicente L Rafael (ed)

What is crime? Who are criminals? In whose eyes do crime and criminals appear? The essays in this volume engage the relationship between criminality and the law in relation to state formation, nationalist thought, ethnic identity and contending notions of power. Essays include those by Rudolf Mrazek on policing in the late colonial Netherlands East Indies; Henk Schulte Nordholt & Margaret van Till on colonial criminals in Java 1870-1910; Joshua Barker on surveillance in Bandung; Dan Lev on criminal process in Indonesia; James Siegel on the new criminal in Jakarta; and Henk Maier on the 'crimes' of Pramoedya Ananta Toer; as well as essays on other countries.

Cornell University, Southeast Asia Press, Studies on Southeast Asia No 25, 369 Pine Tree Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850-2819, USA, tel +1-607-255 8038, fax +1-607-255 7534, email a href=mailto:SEAP-Pubs@cornell.edu

Lasting fascinations

Harry A Poeze & Antoinette Liem (eds)

Essays on Indonesia and the Southwest Pacific to honour Bob Hering, a former paratrooper who helped develop Indonesian studies in Australia, and now lives in the Netherlands. Bob Hering grew up in late colonial Indonesia. A 'bewildering' collection of 33 special contributions, including personal impressions, literary works and academic essays. Among the authors are Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Harry Aveling, Keith Foulcher, Angus McIntyre, Harry Poeze, Greg Poulgrain, and Wim Wertheim.

Stein, Netherlands: Yayasan Soekarno/ Kabar Seberang no 28/29, 1998, 507pp, hbk ISBN 90-6718-132-3, Rrp US$45 for Inside Indonesia subscribers, Vleugelmorgenstr. 2, 6171NP Stein, Netherlands.