Welcome to RMA Indonesia

As many businessmen in Jakarta are fond of saying, the Chinese word for crisis combines the characters for danger and opportunity. Since the regional economic crisis took hold in 1997, Indonesia has been a prime example of this seeming dichotomy.

Indonesia's dangers remain obvious. Though some of the country’s democratic institutions have made great strides, Indonesia’s coalition administration that often lacks direction. A vocal extremist minority make no secret of its desire to form a non-secular government, a prospect that unsettles investors. Pockets of ethnic strife have undercut Indonesia's tradition of tolerance in many parts of the nation. Weak labor laws have eroded the competitive advantage of the country's vast manpower pool.

Indonesia's opportunities are equally obvious. A massive nation of 17,000 islands, its spans a distance equal from New York to Los Angeles. It has the fourth largest population on Earth, with a middle class larger than many European nations. It is strategically located astride some of the busiest air and sea lanes in the world. And its deposits of natural resources-from gold to natural gas-are among the planet's richest.

Every year, foreign businessmen and investors judge Indonesia's opportunities to be worth the risk. They seek to understand the dangers, to place them in their proper perspective, and to chart mitigating strategies to successfully navigate around them.

Indonesia is unique. Its challenges, too, have nuances not found elsewhere. For new investors, due diligence is of paramount importance. For international companies that have stringent care of duty requirements, care must be given to selecting a security consultant that will help plot the risks and chart solutions. With its combination of world-best practices and depth of Indonesian expertise, make your choice RISK MANAGEMENT ADVISORY.

THE CAMBODIAN WARS: CLASHING ARMIES AND CIA COVERT OPERATIONS
by Ken Conboy

For most Americans, Cambodia was a sideshow to the war in Vietnam, but by the time of the Vietnam invasion of Democratic Kampuchea in 1978 and the subsequent war, it had finally moved to center stage. Kenneth Conboy chronicles the violence that plagued Cambodia from World War II until the end of the twentieth century and peels back the layers of secrecy that surrounded the CIA’s covert assistance to anticommunist forces in Cambodia during that span.

Conboy’s path-breaking study provides the first complete assessment of CIA ops in two key periods—during the Khmer Republic’s existence (1970–1975), in support of American military action in Vietnam, and during the Reagan and first Bush presidencies (1981–1991), when the CIA challenged Soviet expansion by supporting exiled royalists, Republicans, and even former Communists trying to expel the Vietnamese from their country. Through interviews with dozens of CIA Cambodia veterans—as well as special forces officers from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Australia—he sheds new light on the contributions made by foreign intelligence services. Through information gleaned from the U.S. Defense Attache’s Office in Phnom Penh, he offers a detailed look at the development of the Khmer Rouge military structure, while his use of Vietnamese-language histories released by the People’s Army of Vietnam helps more fully illuminate the PAVN’s participation in the Cambodian wars.

More than a simple exposé of CIA activities, however, The Cambodian Wars is also an authoritative history of that country’s struggles over half a century. Conboy examines Cambodia as kingdom, colony, republic, revolutionary state, and Vietnamese satellite, and offers fresh insight into the actions of key players—Norodom Sihanouk, Lon Nol, Sisowath Sirik Matak, Son Ngoc Thanh, and others—that will enlighten even those who think they know that country’s history.

Three decades in the making, The Cambodian Wars tells a little known chapter in the Cold War in which non-communists pulled off a surprising victory. Featuring dozens of photos covering events from 1970 to the trial of Pol Pot in 1997, it is must reading for anyone interested in contemporary Southeast Asian history, CIA covert operations, and the Vietnam War.