Diving Archeologists wrongfully detained by indonesian police

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.

The fake reasons for this uphold can only be guessed at.
Still it seems obvious that the works in progress upset the
minds of local police wanting to participate in what they
migth have thought a bargain and easy game ( let the others
do the work, and rob the results).

The work of the archeologists is an indispensable and
historical step in discovering and explaining commercial
relations in ancient times as well as the handicraft related
to trade and shipyarding.

Let us, please, act as a community of responsable and well
informed divers and scientists, to help Mr. Fred Dobberphul,
Germany, and Mr. Jean-Paul Blancan, France, get out of
prison, complete their work, and to prevent such idiocies
from happening in the future.

Pls. acknowledge the facts found in the link mentioned below
and act by writing letters of protest to the Indonesian
Government, as well to the Indonesian Diplomatic Services,
and your own government.

<http://www.hstsg.de/> and related.

Please distribute this messages to as much contributors and
friends as you may deem important, especially to as much
government and non government organisations as possible.


Thanks once again,

Matthias Voss

X-No-Archive: Yes

"Matthias Voss" <mat.voss@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:44285271.3060100@t-online.de...
<snip>

Oh for goodness sake, all they want is a bribe. Just give them 50,000
rupiah.
Anybody who has so little understanding of how stuff works really shouldn't
be working there.

Grr.

Alun Harford

"Alun Harford" <usernet@alunharford.co.uk> wrote in message
news:e09sp0$ee$1@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk...
> X-No-Archive: Yes
>
> "Matthias Voss" <mat.voss@t-online.de> wrote in message
> news:44285271.3060100@t-online.de...
> <snip>
>
> Oh for goodness sake, all they want is a bribe. Just give them 50,000
> rupiah.
> Anybody who has so little understanding of how stuff works really
shouldn't
> be working there.
>
> Grr.
>
> Alun Harford

LOL!!

"Matthias Voss" <mat.voss@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:44285271.3060100@t-online.de...
> This document contains frames, which cannot be edited. The original
> document is attached.

Do you know these guys, and is there an English version somewhere?

Alun Harford wrote:
> X-No-Archive: Yes
>
> "Matthias Voss" <spammat.voss@gmx.de> wrote in message
> news:e0asfv$eg3$03$1@news.t-online.com...
> > Froggy wrote:
> >
> >> Popeye wrote:
> >>
> >>>"Matthias Voss" <mat.voss@t-online.de> wrote in message
> >>>news:44285271.3060100@t-online.de...
> >>>
> >>>>This document contains frames, which cannot be edited. The original
> >>>>document is attached.
> >>>
> >>> Do you know these guys, and is there an English version somewhere?
> >>
> >>
> >> But be careful, you may end up helping some French and German guys
> >>
> >> If you want something that sounds very much like the version of the
> >> facts peddled by the Indonesian police:
> >> http://www.cdnn.info/news/industry/i060309.html
> >>
> >> This version is more succint but looks a bit more balanced:
> >> http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/s.../FK20Wd07.html
> >>
> >> I would find it difficult to believe that these divers may be
> >> considered as "looters" given the high-profile they gave to their
> >> project, that they constantly updated the authorities about the
> >> findings, or the fact that they had some Indonesian Marines onboard for
> >> protection (for good reasons: at one point in time, the Indonesian army
> >> had to protect the Jakarta warehouse holding the finds, against ....
> >> the Indonesian police).
> >
> > Cite one french diver:
> > "Diver Jean-Paul Blancan insists the reason the team incurred the navy's
> > wrath is the team used legal rather than corrupt channels. ``We're
> > certainly one of the only teams to have worked completely within the
> > law,'' he said. ``That must upset a few people. Here, nobody works like
> > that.''"
> >
> > This guy is absolutely right.
> > 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?

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.

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.

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?

Cheers,

Froggy

"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?

"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