An Empire of the East : Travels in Indonesia

Split into three parts, this is a travelogue of the authors time in northern Sumatra (travelling to, and time in Aceh); East Timor (Timor Leste); and Irian Jaya (West Papua).

This isn't a upbeat tourism piece to encourage the traveller. It is a balanced, but often critical look at the way the three most oppressed parts of Indonesia have been treated. Despite all pushing for independence, since this book (published in 1993) only Timor Leste has achieved full independence, although Aceh is what is called a ‘special autonomous region'.

The USA, and to a large extent Australia facilitated the Javanese Indonesian government in their efforts to root out the indigenous culture from the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia. Their support in removing Sukarno and replacing him with Suharto in 1967 was primarily a compromise that reassured them that Communism wouldn't take hold in Indonesia. The compromise was turning a blind eye to the corruption & the horrific mass executions.

Other than this, Lewis examines the long term effects of the transmigrations - where thousands of Javanese and Balinese families were forcibly (although some were voluntary) relocated to the underpopulated areas - including Aceh and West Papua - on which he focusses here.
East Timor is another scene of horrific mass murder, and Lewis takes pleasure in speaking a little Portugese to irritate the Javanese.

In Irian Jaya he spends time with the indigenous tribes, succeeding in spending some time in small villages in the interior, and then visits the enormous copper mines run by the American Freeport Copper Mine - at the time they had almost completed the hollowing out of the first mountain, and had made a start on the second. Equally an incredible engineering feat, and an environmental disaster, event the infrastructure for the mine was amazing. It was rumoured that the Indonesian government had awarded an even larger mining concession running all the way to the Papua New Guinea border - unable to be confirmed at the time, but the Grasberg mine is still in operation (2016) and is the largest gold, and third largest copper mine in the world. Needless to say, the mine has almost no benefits, and many downsides for the local indigenous tribes.

I enjoyed the writing style, and Lewis attempts to get away from standard tourist trails makes things much more interesting. Four stars for me.