The Age, May 8, 2006
Jakarta accuses Australian academics
THE Indonesian Government has accused two Deakin University academics of
promoting separatism in West Papua and warned that the country's institutions will
have nothing more to do with the university.
Deakin has confirmed that it was aware of a letter sent on the issue by the Indonesian
Ministry of National Education.
"We understand (it) mentions that some academics hold views which they consider to
be against the interests of Indonesia," the university said in a statement.
The letter concerns the work of Damien Kingsbury and Scott Burchill from the
university's School of International and Political Studies.
Dr Burchill is a senior lecturer in International Relations and commentator on
Australian-Indonesia relations. Dr Kingsbury has written several books on Indonesia
and was a mediator between the Indonesian Government and the Free Aceh
Movement in negotiating a peace treaty that ended the province's decades-long
separatist conflict last year. Both are regular contributors to The Age.
Dr Kingsbury said he believed the Indonesian Government might have sidelined him for
having contact with Papuan activists.
"(The letter) is obviously a reflection about a fundamental misunderstanding about my
interests and my role," he said.
"I was intimately involved in the resolution of the Aceh problem and if they really want
a similar sort of resolution for West Papua, then I'm the sort of person they should be
welcoming."
Dr Kingsbury, banned from entering Indonesia in December 2004, believes the letter
was written by the Indonesian state intelligence agency, BIN.
He said he believed he and Dr Burchill were part of a wider list issued by BIN, singling
out Australian activists, academics and politicians whom it viewed as unsympathetic
to Indonesia's concerns over West Papua.
Deakin University defended the academics' right to speak out, saying it "supports the
academic freedom of our staff members to comment, within the law, on matters within
their research expertise".
The Indonesian consul-general in Melbourne, Wahid Supriyadi, confirmed he had a
copy of the letter but he declined to comment further, saying it was a matter for
Indonesia's Education Minister, Bambang Sudibyo.
Copyright © 2006. The Age Company Ltd.
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