forests, cleared and sold them, and planned on shipping beef in
football field-size barges to the lucra-tive Singapore and Hong
Kong markets. Sulawesi was also viewed as a cornerstone of the
government's transmigration program—a scheme similar to the
colonization of the Amazon that had impacted the people I
worked with during my Peace Corps years, aimed at
31THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN
EMPIRE
moving the urban poor from cities in Java (which had the
highest population density in the world) to underpopulated areas.
Like its Latin American version, this program was supported by
the international development agencies as a method for disbursing
impoverished slum dwellers to unsettled rural regions and thereby
mitigating against the likelihood of antigovernment rebellions.
The policy continued despite the fact that experts soon discovered
that, on both continents, such programs often turned disastrous.
Local indigenous people were displaced, their lands and cultures
destroyed, while newly transplanted urban populations struggled
unsuccessfully to cultivate the fragile soil.
When I arrived in Sulawesi, I was given a government-owned
house outside the old Portuguese city of Makasar (renamed Ujung
Pandang in one of Suharto's nods at nationalism), complete with
maid, gardener, chef, jeep, and driver. My job, as usual, was to
travel to any region that appeared to have resources multinational
corporations might exploit, meet with community leaders, collect
all available information, and write a glowing report proving that
huge loans to develop electric power and other infrastructure
projects would turn this medieval economy into a modern
success.
A town known as "Batsville," located near the budding Texas
cattle ranch, had been identified as a possible location for a power
plant. Early one morning, my driver drove us out of Ujung
Pandang, up the spectacular coast, to the port city of Parepare.