Transboundary Haze Pollution Act in action

According to Vivian the govt is invoking the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act to take the companies suspected of being the cause of the haze to task. According to Channel News Asia, Singapore is taking legal action. However the paper also said, and I quote, ‘APP was asked by Singapore's National Environment Agency to supply information on its subsidiaries operating in Singapore and Indonesia, as well as measures taken by its suppliers in Indonesia to put out fires in their concessions.’ So, is this part of the legal action or just asking to provide information?

By the way, I just took a peep at the window and the sky is clear, no haze. Would the legal action be stopped now that the haze is no longer in the air?  At the way the haze came and gone, would it affect the legal actions or would the legal actions go on until the culprit is found guilty and the court imposes a sentence? The whole process could take some time and by the next haze season, the case could still be in court. And there are provisions for appeals which would drag on further. How long would the whole legal process take before a final judgement is conclusive?

One thing good about the legal process is that it would keep the companies busy in the court and keep paying legal fees even if they are found not guilty. The effort to bring them to court and the publicity plus the legal fees hopefully would be painful enough to make these companies, or just one company, to think twice about being a party to the haze problem.

APP would be the first to face the music for being a registered company here. What about Indonesian companies that have no office here?  Would they be sued here or in Indonesia? Or nothing really can be done to them? Channel News Asia reported that four Indonesian companies, ‘Rimba Hutani Mas, Sebangun Bumi Andalas Wood Industries, Bumi Sriwijaya Sentosa and Wachyuni Mandira -- have been told to take measures to extinguish fires on their land, refrain from starting new ones, and submit action plans to prevent future fires.’ These companies must be working hard at it after receiving the demands from Singapore govt. Just hope they did not throw the letters into the fire to add to the haze.

Oh, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said Singapore should be grateful for the whole year of oxygen provided by Indonesia and should not complain about the haze. Vivian could tell him that Singapore is a green country with plenty of oxygen of our own. And Indonesia can switch off the oxygen from their jungles or build a wall to prevent the oxygen from crossing the Straits of Malacca. They can keep all the oxygen to themselves, thank you very much.

The only thing perhaps Singapore can learn from the Indonesians is how to create smokes for military operations without spending on expensive smoke grenades. To throw smoke or haze in such a scale to blanket a few countries must be a very costly affair involving millions of smoke grenades. Tactically the SAF must start to think of countermeasures against the haze being used as a smoke screen for a military attack. Though this is remote as our relations with the Indonesians are very good, in times of animosity, what comes through many not be just haze and could be quite toxic or infectious. All our expensive military weaponry will be no match to a haze attack that can be done so cheaply, no need for soldiers, just a few farmers and a few match sticks and we can be defeated.

Come to think of it the haze problem could be an annual military war game the Indonesians are conducting to test its effectiveness on Singapore and Malaysia. And we really have no answers to it. Legal actions and the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act would be meaningless in times of war.

Now this is something that should deserve some detailed studies by the military strategists in Mindef.  Shall this be called biological warfare, chemical warfare or asymmetrical warfare?  Maybe the F35s would be the ultimate aircraft to deal with haze as a weapon of choice by an enemy. It is not funny that the most expensive and highly sophisticated military force in SE Asia could be rendered useless by haze. Mind you, the intensity of the haze is very light but if it is an all out hostile act, the whole island could be covered in darkness and visibility could be less than 10 metres. All human activities could be grounded to a halt, including commercial aircraft and shipping.

The Indonesians have stumbled into a very powerful weapon, cheap and effective, to deal with us or Malaysia if needed be. Singapore and Malaysia better be nicer to the Indonesians. They must be laughing their guts out everything we boast about buying more sophisticated and ultra expensive machine of war.