Linda Wallace on Tue, 29 Jul 1997 07:57:50 +0200 (MET DST) |
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<nettime> blaming soros, the burmese currency crisis |
There are many reasons compounding the recent currency crisis in some ASEAN countries: the effect of the devaluation of the Yen as outlined by Mackenzie Wark, coupled with, in the case of Thailand in particular, large foreign borrowing and current account deficits; a high proportion of bank lending going to finance a property glut; dollar linked exchange rates and a slowdown in export growth. I tend to agree with the Bangkok Post leader: "his blaming of Soros for Southeast Asia's economic woes is vintage Mahathir. While his far-fetched conspiracy theories may receive a measure of domestic support given his firm grip on the Malaysian media, for the rest of the world he is beginning to sound like an angry old man" Recent Malaysian response to an Australian (leaked) secret intelligence report which details corruption and environmental vandalism by Malaysian logging companies operating in the South Pacific has been sharp. The government controlled "New Straights Times" newspaper accused Australia of being driven by 'awe and envy'. The paper reflects the Malaysian Government's long standing antagonism at criticism of these Malaysian timber companies with powerful political connections. It calls these companies "shining examples" of the success of Malaysian business expanding into foreign markets. However, environmentalists have warned that the timber resources of, for example, the Solomon Islands will be exhausted within a decade because of unsustainable logging practices. Malaysian companies have been widely criticised for routinely bribing politicians to gain logging concessions and for clear felling virgin rainforest. The South Pacifc Forum called for restraints to logging in 1994 after one Malaysian company was expelled from the Solomon Islands for offering a bag of cash to a minister in the former government. During the discussions last week re: ASEAN membership Mahathir was scathing to those who criticised the admittance of resource rich (timber and minerals etc) Burma, saying that criticism was western/american inspired and was aimed at keeping these countries poor. It was not Vietnam as Mackenzie states here: "Most western countries are very sceptical about ASEAN extending to both Vietnam and Burma" -- the countries to be admitted at this most recent meeting were Laos, Burma and Cambodia. Vietnam was admitted two years ago. Though for sure, there are many (western) countries concerned not only about about ASEAN's extension countries, but also about ASEAN's existing members, in terms of democracy: "Indonesia which so recently demonstrated the virtues of the one party poll; or Singapore, which sued its newest Opposition minister into exile after elections last January; Thailand, whose latest government triumphed after a record $2 billion vote-buying extravaganza; or Vietnam, the last refuge of the totalitarian dinosaur." (Sydney Morning Herald, July 26) Cambodia doesn't have much to worry about in terms of its delayed admittance to the ASEAN club -- Hun Sen's virtual coup d'etat neatly took the heat off ASEAN over Burma, and now bets are on that Cambodia will become a member in time for the 30th anniversary leaders' summit in December this year. Linda Wallace Linda Wallace ::: director ::: machine hunger po box 1357 ::: potts point::: 2011 australia ::: tel ::: 61 2 9368 1908 fax ::: 61 2 9368 1928 mobile ::: 04111 36 499 website ::: http://sysx.apana.org.au/artists/hunger/ --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de