Chronicle 2004: The unreported year - East Asia and Pacific

January
Malaysia Iranian asylum seeker Gulam Hassan Anwari dies after setting himself on fire outside the office of the UNHCR.

February
Australia Aboriginal youths riot in the Redfern suburb of Sydney after heavy-handed policing results in the death of a 17-year-old.
China A senior Chinese legislator suggests that as many as 10,000 criminals a year are being executed.
Japan An Iranian man is refused refugee status, despite facing the death penalty because of his homosexuality if he returns to his homeland. Just 10 asylum seekers were granted refugee status in 2003.

March
North Korea Several hundred people are killed and thousands injured when two trains, carrying oil and liquified petroleum gas, collide at Ryongchong station.
Taiwan Tens of thousands demonstrate after President Chen Shui-bian is re-elected with a majority of less than 0.2 per cent.

April
West Papua Almost every native Papuan boycotts Indonesian elections.
China After over a decade of ignoring HIV/AIDS, the Government announces free tests for all.
South Korea The liberal Uri party gains control of the Assembly in the sharpest political shift for decades.

May
Burma A year after her detention, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest. Her party boycotts constitutional talks for which the Government had indicated she would be freed.
Thailand Security forces clash with separatists attacking police posts in the Muslim-majority south, killing at least 107.
New Zealand/AOTEAROA Thousands of Maori protest outside Parliament over plans to nationalize the shoreline, which indigenous groups claim belongs to them.
Philippines Incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo secures a new term in a general election marred by reports of intimidation and fraud.

JUNE
South Korea Some 10,000 protesters from Asian trade unions, farmers’ organizations and NGOs converged on the World Economic Forum summit in Seoul.
Australia The ‘Flotilla of Hope’ arrives at the Government’s internment camp on Nauru. Seven Iraqi asylum seekers are on hunger strike in the camp.
KANAKY/NEW CALEDONIA Despite feuds within her anti-independence Future Together party, Marie-Noelle Thémereau takes office as President in the French colony.

JULY
China The Government admits that the number of farmers living in poverty is rising despite the high economic growth rate. An estimated 500,000 people gather in Hong Kong's biggest ever pro-democracy demonstration.
Philippines Troops are withdrawn from Iraq in response to public protests over a Filipino hostage.
New Zealand/AOTEAROA Relations with Israel are suspended after two suspected Mossad agents are jailed over forged passports.
Taiwan China mounts a large military operation in the Taiwan Strait, threatening invasion if plans for constitutional change are pursued.

AUGUST
Japan Four electricity workers are killed and seven injured in an accident at a nuclear power station in Mihama.
Fiji Vice-President Ratu Jope Aeniloli is found guilty of involvement in the 2000 coup that overthrew the country’s first Indo-Fijian Government.
Indonesia/Timor-Leste Indonesia’s appeal court overturns the convictions of four security officials charged with crimes against humanity in Timor-Leste in 1999. The ruling means no Indonesian officials face jail for the violence, which killed 1,500.

SEPTEMBER
Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono becomes the country’s first directly elected President.
Malaysia Former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is released from prison after his appeal against a nine-year prison sentence is upheld.
Brunei The Sultan signs a constitutional amendment allowing the first elections in more than 40 years, though only for a minority of MPs.

OCTOBER
Thailand 78 Muslims die from suffocation after being arrested at a demonstration and crammed into army trucks in Narathiwat province.
AUSTRALIA John Howard wins a fourth term in elections dominated by the economy, national security and Australia's military involvement in Iraq.
Tahiti At least 15,000 people stage the island’s biggest ever protest rally. Supporters of the ousted pro-independence President Oscar Temaru accuse France of using underhand tactics to remove him.

NOVEMBER
Vietnam Deputy Trade Minister Mai Van Dau is arrested over a scandal involving the selling of export quotas to Vietnamese garment makers.
China Over 100 miners are believed killed by a gas explosion at a coalmine. Chinese mines are among the most dangerous in the world.

DECEMBER
THE REGION A colossal earthquake in the Indian Ocean just west of Sumatra results in a tsunami that devastates coastal populations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma and Thailand as well as in South Asia. The official death toll reaches 125,000, with five million homeless, by the end of the year. As in all natural disasters, the poor form the vast majority of the victims. The relief effort takes a week to reach people increasingly endangered by disease.

REBEL IN CHAINS (photo not available for on-line publishing). It is 26 August and a captured guerrilla takes his last view of his homeland from a truck taking him to the plane that will fly him to prison in western Java. He comes from Aceh, where the Free Aceh Movement has been fighting for independence from Indonesia for nearly 30 years. On 27 December Aceh finally came to the notice of the world, as a tsunami devastated its coastal population and destroyed its capital city – an estimated 80,000 Acehnese lives were lost. Yet in all the coverage of Aceh, the story of its civil war somehow remained unreported. Aceh is one of the most shadowy conflict zones in the world: the rebel movement is itself highly secretive while the Indonesian regime has denied access to journalists and human rights monitors. Successive governments in Jakarta have pursued a military ‘solution’. Martial law was imposed in May 2003 and in the ensuing year the military claimed to have killed over 2,000, arrested a further 2,000 and ‘accepted the surrender’ of 1,000 more rebels. In the months since martial law was replaced by ‘civil emergency’ status in May 2004, between 5 and 10 people have been killed each day and human rights abuses are endemic. The arrival in September of Indonesia’s first directly elected President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, could herald a new approach. So far, though, his signals have been mixed. Ordinary Acehnese, often caught between a rock (the army) and a hard place (the guerrillas), know better than to be too optimistic about presidential pronouncements. And after the tsunami they could be forgiven for thinking they live in a land singled out for misery.

COCKLEPICKERS’ HOME (below). The deaths by drowning in February of 21 Chinese cocklepickers in Morecambe Bay, England, were much reported because of what this revealed about the exploitation by gangs of migrant labourers from poorer countries. The untold story was captured by Chinese photographer Qilai Shen, who visited Zelang, in Fujian province, the home village of one of the victims. Guo Binglong’s mother (pictured) recalled how, in a chilling echo of 9/11, her son spoke to her by mobile phone as the waters rose around him. He asked her to pray for him – and then the line went dead.

Photo: QILAI SHEN / PANOS

COLONIAL SHARES (photo not available for on-line publishing). This demonstrator in Sydney is referring to the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field in the Arafura Sea off the coast of Timor-Leste (formerly known as East Timor). When Timor-Leste finally achieved its independence from Indonesia in 2002, it was officially the poorest country in Asia. Economists argue that its human development position could be transformed if it could benefit from the oil and gas resources on its doorstep. International practice is for maritime boundaries to fall halfway between two neighbours, which would put Greater Sunrise clearly in Timor-Leste waters. But Australia has insisted on sticking to a boundary formerly agreed with Indonesia – and this year tried to bully Timor-Leste into accepting a ‘revenue-sharing’ deal that would grant the island nation just 18 per cent. The stand-off continues – and so do the solidarity protests.