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Date: 1998-06-01
Indonesien: Netz koordiniert Revolte
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q/depesche 98.6.1.2
Indonesien: Netz koordiniert Revolte
meint der Boston Globe. Ein Blick in die newsgroup soc.culture.indonesia
spricht für diese Annahme.
Indonesia revolt was Net driven
By David L. Marcus, Globe Staff, 05/23/98
WASHINGTON - As rebellions broke out across Indonesia this month,
protesters did not have tanks or guns. But they had a powerful tool that
wasn't available during the country's previous uprisings: the Internet.
Bypassing the government-controlled television and radio stations,
dissidents shared information about protests by e-mail, inundated news
groups with stories of President Suharto's corruption, and used chat
groups to exchange tips about resisting troops. In a country made up of
thousands of islands, where phone calls are expensive, the electronic
messages reached key organizers.
''This was the first revolution using the Internet,'' said W. Scott
Thompson, an associate professor of international politics at the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Thompson, like
many academics who follow developments in Indonesia, kept track of the
dissidents' communications with one another from thousands of miles
away.
New technologies have changed the ways the world learns about a
fast-changing political crisis. As Chinese troops quashed a democracy
movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the dissidents communicated with
the outside world by fax, and TV networks used satellites to send out
chilling footage. The same year, thanks to West German television, many
East Germans learned that the Berlin Wall was being toppled.
Details of a Russian coup in 1991 spread by fax and a primitive version
of the Internet, and a year later CNN sent images of a military uprising
in Thailand around the world.
Thanks to the Internet, Thompson said, Indonesian activists circumvented
press censorship. In one chat group, he said, participants circulated
inspiring accounts of the 1986 ''peoples' power'' rebellion in the
Philippines.
Some of the messages simply gave encouragement. Last week, in an America
Online chat group about Asia, a correspondent nicknamed ''Asia Son''
urged Indonesians to keep denouncing President Suharto's corruption and
cronyism. ''One or two people saying that [are] easily dragged away and
silenced,'' Asia Son wrote. ''One or two million doing it is not so
easy.''
The same day, in broken English, another correspondent urged looters not
to pick on Indonesia's ethnic Chinese minority: ''Why are they always
the victim when there is a riot? ... All they do is make a honest
living. They work hard and when you worked hard you deserve success.''
As Indonesia heated up this week, Abigail Abrash, an Asia specialist at
the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights in Washington,
stayed in constant touch with friends in Jakarta and other Indonesian
cities. She sent them summaries of the American news coverage of the
uprisings. Abrash received front-line reports from students occuping
Indonesia's parliament building. From what she read, it seemed that
someone brought a laptop inside and went on line while surrounded by
armed troops.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/143/Indonesia_revolt_was_Net_
driven.htm
Relayed by Pit Schultz <pit@icf.de> via Declan McCullagh. tnx.
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edited by Harkank
published on: 1998-06-01
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