Paris Club generosity is for the Acehnese<\/p>\n
Kornelius Purba, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
A former finance minister once described negotiations with the
\nParis Club as a humiliating experience -- humbly begging for debt
\nmercy in front of 19 sullen faces representing rich creditor
\nnations.<\/p>\n
With disaster-struck -- previously war-torn -- Aceh now high
\non the international sympathy radar, Minister of Finance Yusuf
\nAnwar may not need to be as embarrassed when he faces the Paris
\nClub to ask for a debt moratorium on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Major members of the club have already announced their
\nwillingness to at least accept a moratorium on Indonesia's
\nsovereign debt. Up to the first semester of 2004, Indonesia's
\nforeign debt stood at US$137 billion, including $82.12 billion in
\nsovereign debt. About $3 billion alone is due in principal
\npayments this year.<\/p>\n
With the moratorium, the government can allocate the money to
\nrebuild Aceh.<\/p>\n
The world has been seemingly united in the past two weeks in a
\nconspiracy of hope to help the victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami
\nwhich has killed 155,000 people in several countries. Two-thirds
\nof the fatalities were Indonesians.<\/p>\n
The scale of the disaster has even pulled at American
\nheartstrings so much that it has succeeded in just a few short
\ndays where diplomacy failed for years: getting Washington to
\ntemporarily lift the arms embargo to allow Indonesian Military
\ntransport planes used to fly in supplies to get spare parts.<\/p>\n
\"You are now swimming in a pool of money. You may even find it
\nsuffocating with all the aid flooding in,\" an Asian diplomat
\nquipped after announcing the amount his country was giving in aid
\nfor Aceh last week.<\/p>\n
Even without the tsunami, the plight of the province is
\nsaddening. Under bitter military occupation -- in the guise of
\nvarious terminologies -- since 1989, Aceh has literally been a
\nkilling field.<\/p>\n
Let's just hope that no one during the Paris Club meeting
\ndraws parallels between the tsunami deaths and the number of
\ncivilians killed during military operations -- about 10 times the
\nnumber of Acehnese killed during military operations in the last
\n15 years.<\/p>\n
The Acehnese, a proud and independent folk, have weighed
\nheavily on the country's leaders since first president Sukarno.
\nSadly all eventually opted to use force quell the people's
\ndemands for justice.<\/p>\n
It is never easy to silence the voice of freedom, especially
\nthe Acehnese. Two Paris Club members -- former colonial powers
\nthe Netherlands and Japan -- know exactly from firsthand
\nexperience how difficult it is to break the spirit of the
\nAcehnese.<\/p>\n
But this recent natural disaster could be a blessing in
\ndisguise for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in a province
\nwhere most voters voted for him in the September presidential
\nelection.<\/p>\n
The central government's greatest enemy is actually not the
\nseparatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) despite its armed rebellion,
\nbut the people who feel the government behaves as a colonial
\npower. The government, which extracts their natural riches, uses
\nguns to as a response to their complaints and abuses their rights
\nas human beings whenever possible.<\/p>\n
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's government has made it clear that
\nit will demand an unconditional moratorium from the club on
\nWednesday, including an exclusion from the obligation to have the
\nmuch-hated International Monetary Fund treatment. This time
\nIndonesia is using the Aceh card for debt relief and if possible
\nwhy not a total debt write-off? So far the most enthusiastic
\nsupporter of the idea is Luxembourg which has no accounts
\nreceivable here and is also not a member of the club.<\/p>\n
But isn't the unconditional demand ridiculous? The money of
\ncourse is not for a spending-spree because it is given to help
\nthe Acehnese people to rebuild their lives, no more and no less.
\nIndonesia can demand an unconditional moratorium, but the
\ncreditors also have the right to ensure their money well spent.<\/p>\n
But be careful Pak Yusuf! When you are too demanding with the
\nParis Club, in response your irritated host may quip, \"Enak di lu
\nkagak enak di gua (it is good for you, but not for me).\"<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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