Diving Archeologists wrongfully detained by indonesian police

"Alun Harford" <usernet@alunharford.co.uk> wrote in message
news:e0b5g7$il0$1@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk...

> Why should I offer any kind of assistance to them when I know that they
> can just bribe their way out?

To prove you're not some smarmy peice of shit?

Oh, wait.

You've already established that, your reputation precedes you.

Are you Canadian?


>
> Alun Harford
>

"Froggy" wrote

> But be careful, you may end up helping some French and German guys

We do that all the time. It's the reverse that's not as common as it should
be.

Lee

Most amusing tale.

The first sign of severe bullshit is the police spokesman's title.
Brigadere General. We don't see a lot of Brigadeer General police spokesmen
in this part of the world.

The second sign is that everything was fine until they realized the value of
the items being raised. It only became a crime when the find proved
valuable. Personally, if forced to chose who was most likely to be the
thief, the General would be more likely to find himself on the way to
prison.

I find it particularly interesting that that valuable, historic artifacts so
important to Indonesian police, are Chinese vases. If the divers are
looters, so are the Indonesians. Send it all back to China.

Lee

"Froggy" wrote

> Given the background of these guys, unless you do have a specific
> expertise, they probably know a lot more on how to operate there than
> you do.

Perhaps not. They don't seem to be doing too well at the moment.

> For this type of operation, paying a bribe would probably be
> counterproductive. They got a legitimate deal with the government. The
> competitor bribes the police and the police gets in the way. Now if
> they had bribed the government to start with, then they would be in
> deep trouble because they would have no basis to counter the police
> action. Here they can at least hope that international pressure and
> exposure in the media will help them.

Maybe they should have paid off the police too?

It's pretty certain that they sould have kept the value of what they were
recovering a bit less public.

> And more generally, would you prefer to see underwater exploration
> conducted in an appropriate way by professional types, or being looted
> at the expense of scientific knowledge and artifacts conservation?

How much difference is there. The articles I read seem to indicate that
they are planning on selling the items they recover at auction, with 50% of
the proceeds going to the Indonesian government. How does that preserve the
scientific knowledge or artifacts?

It seems to me that they have, in fact, established their bribes and simply
failed to include everyone that should have been considered.

Lee

On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:09:04 +0100, Alun Harford <usernet@alunharford.co.uk> wrote:

>> Nothing upsets corrupt authorities more than playing by the legal rules.
>
> Not even nessersarily corrupt. Part of their job is to get bribes. The
> military gets about 1/3 of its funding from the government and the other 2/3
> from bribes. It's one of the few places in the world where you can get a
> receipt for your bribe (you can imagine what response 'bribe' gets from
> beancounters - always get a receipt).
> Anybody working there without this kind of basic knowledge is asking to get
> locked up. Why should I offer any kind of assistance to them when I know
> that they can just bribe their way out?
>
> Alun Harford

I just happen to know one of the divers personally (better than I know
you) as he is an instructor in my club. I find your attitude somewhat
strange. These people specifically decided to do their excavation
legally in order to preserve the artefacts and make them available to
research and museums (besides making some money for themselves) rather
than use illegal methods which would make these artefacts go into dark
channels and effectively disappear. The whole point is that they are
not looters but scientists. If they "just bribe their way out" they
would be arrested next time again and then also charged for bribery
which would substantially increase the amount of cash needed to "just
bribe them out" for the second time otherwise not changing much.

Robert


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Robert C. Helling School of Science and Engineering
International University Bremen
print "Just another Phone: +49 421-200 3574
stupid .sig\n"; http://www.aei-potsdam.mpg.de/~helling

"Robert C. Helling" <robert@atdotde.iu-bremen.de> wrote in message
news:slrne2i8g7.u07.robert@atdotde.iu-bremen.de...

> I find your attitude somewhat strange.

I'm sure he's used to it.

Matthias Voss wrote:

> Dear friends,
> it is time to act.
>
> Professional Archeologists and Divers, who operated with consent,
> contracts and licenses issued by Indonesian authorities and government,
> to explore a shiwpwreck site in Indonesian waters, have been recently
> detained by the local police in Indonesia.

Where were you when Mel Fisher went through essentially the same BS?

"Robert C. Helling" <robert@atdotde.iu-bremen.de> wrote in message
news:slrne2i8g7.u07.robert@atdotde.iu-bremen.de...
> I just happen to know one of the divers personally (better than I know
> you) as he is an instructor in my club. I find your attitude somewhat
> strange. These people specifically decided to do their excavation
> legally in order to preserve the artefacts and make them available to
> research and museums (besides making some money for themselves) rather
> than use illegal methods which would make these artefacts go into dark
> channels and effectively disappear. The whole point is that they are
> not looters but scientists. If they "just bribe their way out" they
> would be arrested next time again and then also charged for bribery
> which would substantially increase the amount of cash needed to "just
> bribe them out" for the second time otherwise not changing much.

You've missed my point. In the west, we have taxation. You pay the tax
people so that the police don't come and lock you up. In Indonesia, you pay
the police etc directly. Governments need to raise income, and both systems
work. Taxation has the disadvantage that you need far more layers of
bureaucracy, while bribary has disadvantages with regard to fairness (people
who cannot afford to bribe have less access to services provided by
government).

If they choose to go there and try to use the "western" system, they're
going to get locked up, just like if somebody were to come to the west and
try to hand out bribes.

Alun Harford

"Froggy" <hub666@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1143549708.249281.56240@t31g2000cwb.googlegro ups.com...
> And more generally, would you prefer to see underwater exploration
> conducted in an appropriate way by professional types, or being looted
> at the expense of scientific knowledge and artifacts conservation?

What's to stop professional types from paying bribes?
Is it unprofessional to realise the social context that you are operating
within and conduct your business appropriately, instead of assuming that the
whole world is exactly like in the west?

Alun Harford

mike gray wrote:

> Matthias Voss wrote:
>
>> Dear friends,
>> it is time to act.
>>
>> Professional Archeologists and Divers, who operated with consent,
>> contracts and licenses issued by Indonesian authorities and
>> government, to explore a shiwpwreck site in Indonesian waters, have
>> been recently detained by the local police in Indonesia.
>
>
> Where were you when Mel Fisher went through essentially the same BS?
>

Not reborn yet.

Greets,
Matthias