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January 31:
After years of tense relations with Jakarta, Washington’s interest in the Indonesian military is regaining momentum. The
Straits Times reports that the U.S. has renewed funding for the training of Indonesian military personnel for the first time since a similar program between the two nations was suspended in 2002, following a regional attack that killed a group of American school teachers. The Indonesian military, initially blamed for the attack, has since been cleared of allegations, paving the way for renewed counterterrorism cooperation. $600,00 has reportedly already been allocated for the joint program for the coming year.
February 1:
India’s intelligence services are intently watching American covert operations in Pakistan’s unruly Northwest Frontier Province, United Press International reports. Sources from India’s Research and Analysis Wing, known as RAW, say that U.S. intelligence services have had a “secret shop” in the region for some time, and have established “listening posts” in the lawless Pakistani region as part of the Bush administration’s ongoing hunt for master terrorist Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda and Taliban elements.
February 3:
Cambodia is drifting toward dictatorship after the country’s opposition leader was forced into hiding. United Press International reports that Sam Rainsy fled the country for Thailand after his party was stripped off parliamentary immunity. Rainsy had alleged that the president of the National Assembly, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, accepted bribes from the Cambodian People’s Party to form a coalition government, and accused Prime Minister Hun Sen of conspiring to kill political dissenters.
February 4:
In its first strategic assessment in four years, South Korea’s defense ministry has downgraded North Korea to a “military threat,” Agence France Presse reports. The political decision follows Seoul’s 2000 classification of Pyongyang as its “main enemy,” a move that escalated tensions between the two Koreas. Despite the new label, however, Seoul is still planning for the possibility of confrontation with its northern neighbor. The South Korean white paper predicts that, in the event of an outbreak of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, the Pentagon will deploy 690,000 additional troops to bolster the more than 30,000 U.S. troops already stationed in the area.
February 7:
Indonesia’s Malacca Straits continue to be among the most dangerous shipping lanes in the world, according to a new assessment of global piracy by the London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB). The
Straits Times, citing the 2004 IMB study, reports that more kidnappings occurred in the Straits last year than anywhere else in the world. Moreover, almost a third (93) of the 325 piracy attacks that took place in 2004 transpired in Indonesia. The IMB also reports a change in the nature of regional attacks; whereas in the past, incidents of piracy were generally attributed to Aceh rebels, increasing evidence suggests that crime syndicates operating from fishing boats are staging “copycat kidnappings” as a way of acquiring easy money.
In the wake of King Gyanendra’s power grab in Nepal, the Straits Times reports that Maoist insurgents are threatening to bring the Southeast Asian state to a standstill. Maoist leader Prachanda has warned that unless the King rescinds his “Nazi-style repression,” rebels under his command would impose an indefinite countrywide blockade. The threat is more than idle bluster; last December, Prachanda’s Maoist guerrillas enforced a week-long transport blockade that cut off overland routes into the country’s capital and caused severe shortages of food and fuel supplies to the Kathmandu valley.
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