Dealing with the press

With the strike of a gong the APEC ministerial meeting, to be followed by a conference of APEC's heads of government on Tuesday, was officially opened by President Soeharto yesterday. But it would be an illusion to believe that only the APEC conference, or the ensuing bilateral meetings among the participating government officials have come under the glare of the television spotlights and the watchful eyes of the thousands of journalists who have come for the meeting. Unavoidably, scrutinizing eyes will be, or perhaps already are, directed at the host country itself, Indonesia.

Once described by President Bill Clinton as the most underestimated country in the world, Indonesia has in the past few years taken a different course and adopted a more high- profile foreign policy. The chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement and the APEC, to name just two examples, have pushed Indonesia into the spotlight of international politics.

But this does not mean that Indonesia has only lately attracted the attention of the world media. For years the East Timor issue, for example, has been in the focus of international media reports, justifiably to the chagrin of the Indonesian government because those international observations tended to focus only on the darker sides of the story and forget the more positive sides, such as Indonesia's exceptional achievements in its national development program.

Despite the government's continuous efforts to counter such negative reports, certain parties abroad have continued to air complaints that the Indonesian authorities are discouraging foreign journalists from visiting certain areas in this country, such as East Timor. These charges -- some of which have turned out to be groundless since one can see that more foreign journalists and diplomats are being allowed to visit those areas -- regrettably have tarnished Indonesia's image abroad to some extent.

But this time a change can be felt. It is as if the arrival of over 1,500 foreign journalists for the APEC meeting has prompted the government to take a new direction. It is encouraging that now the government seems not only willing to put itself under scrutiny by the international press, it is also apparently ready to capitalize on the big event and to use it as an opportunity to launch a public relations blitz.

The way the government has opened this country's doors to previously unwanted foreign journalists is an indication of this. Moreover, the fact that all visiting foreign journalists are allowed to visit any place they like in Indonesia, including East Timor, has further supported the notion that something very refreshing is indeed brewing.

We can only welcome such a wise move and hope that it will not be short-lived. As the world continues to shrink and the penetrating eyes of television cameras will soon become as ubiquitous as the antenna discs which relay the images they capture to viewers around the world, no country will be able to escape the onslaught of the world media. And as Indonesia is moving further onto the international stage, the best policy is to open up the country since any attempt of cover things up would surely only invite suspicion that something must be hidden.

We feel that we should have nothing to hide. No one is perfect and we do for certain still have many shortcomings. But then, there should be nothing to be ashamed of as long as we really make the necessary efforts to mend our deficiencies. After all we are a developing country in which about 25 million people still live below the poverty line. In reaching for a better future we have made considerable progress and we believe that we are on the right track.

The all-important thing in all this is that we must maintain our political will and continue to move in the right direction. It is to be hoped that the new "openness" that is now being displayed in dealing with the visiting foreign press corps will last and eventually expand to other sectors of our national life.