Indonesia recalls ambassador to Australia over spying allegations - live updates.

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Guardian



Indonesia's president Yudhoyono is reported to be "devastated" by the phone tapping disclosures.

The Sydney Morning Herald quotes his special adviser for political affairs, Daniel Sparringa, as saying:

Until today, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has always paid special attention toward the deepening of the two countries relations. Therefore the news has devastated us.

Indonesia’s concerns on the issues have been long shown by our government’s official inquiries to the Australian ambassador earlier.

If no serious acts are taken to immediately end the issues, it will continue to impede our countries’ [relationship]. President SBY hopes that the Australian government would re-evaluate the approaches used to collect information.



Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/australia-indonesia-spying-revelations-live

[treestar]

1. Considering some of the things the Indonesian government has done

[Violet_Crumble]

2. Australia shouldn't be doing that phone-tapping shit...

That on top of Tony Abbot's moronic plans for asylum seekers where he forgot about Indonesian sovereignty makes us look really bad. That's not good...

[treestar]

5. That's good, at least, in that the US is not the only country

With no right to spy.

[Turborama]

3. Please inform us all what you think Indonesia's government has done that deserves such a reaction...

[treestar]

4. Are you serious?

At least they don't seem to have a dictatorship any more. And it's been a while since the genocide in East Timor. I guess they're all good now.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. Ah, that would be the genocide that both the US and Australia supported...

Or at the very least, turned a blind eye to while officially recognising Indonesia's annexation of East Timor, at least in the case of Australia. Both the US and Australia loved Sukarno, who they saw as fighting the tide of communism, represented in East Timor by Fretilin. And when it comes to past genocides, Australia has its own to offer when it came to the genocide of indigenous Australians that only ended when in the 1970's they did away with the policy of forcibly taking indigenous babies from their parents and 'integrating' them into white families.

Australia's relationship with Indonesia over the past few years has been reasonably strong, though there have been moments of strain generally involving people smuggling, the death penalty being imposed on Australians, and animal cruelty, which led to Australia banning the export of live cattle to Indonesia, and Indonesia threatening to go to the WTO about it...

This was a bad move and Australia needs to apologise unreservedly. You don't tap the phones of those yr on friendly terms with and with who you have security and intelligence agreements.

[Turborama]

8. Yes, I am.

What has the government (present tense) done that deserves your mockery with a violin emoticon?

Blaming the past on the current government is like saying...

At least Germany don't have a dictatorship anymore. And it's been a while since the holocaust. I guess they're all good now.


Unfortunately, uninformed kneejerk comments about Indonesia based on limited knowledge are all too common on DU.

[struggle4progress]

7. Gosh. I remember being told Snowden's leaks were all about Americans' constitutional rights

but more and more it seems the leaks are really about doing as much damage as possible to international relations, in hopes of gaining attention