Dengue fever

I'd like to respond to two items recently discussed in The Jakarta Post. First, regarding the decision by the city fathers to keep silent about the wave of dengue fever sweeping Jakarta so that the number of tourists coming here will not be affected.

It should be noted that since the figures for dengue cases have already been mentioned in The International Herald Tribune, it is quite likely that most of the tourists already know about dengue in Jakarta and are probably asking themselves why the government is keeping quiet about it.

This leads, naturally, to the question of what else the government is being quiet about. The AIDS epidemic perhaps? I am sure that if tourists knew Jakarta was the AIDS capital of Southeast Asia (I don't know if it is or not), that many tourists would stay away.

Given the government's stated policies, does anybody in his right tree believe that the government is being honest with the populace regarding the AIDS epidemic? My cynical journalist friend says that "Yes, most Indonesians believe whatever the government tells them." I sincerely hope not.

Second, thanks to Mr. Zatni Arbi for his fine article in The Jakarta Post about Canberra, Australia. To give an example of what I think he was saying regarding traffic in Jakarta versus Canberra, just look at the awful traffic on Jl. Arteri Cipete, South Jakarta. That road was built to alleviate the traffic flow into the city because Jl. Fatmawati was bumper to bumper every morning. I used to live just off Fatmawati across from where Golden Truly is now and it used to take me 45 minutes to get to Ratu Plaza.

At first, Jl. Arteri helped a great deal and times were cut almost in half for getting into and out of the Blok M area. Recently, however, the above-mentioned beloved city fathers, in their wisdom, installed traffic lights in four places on Jl. Arteri. They have been in place for some time and recently were turned on.

Now, the traffic flow on both Jl. Fatmawati and Jl. Arteri Cipete is worse than it ever was. They have even installed turn left and turn right arrow lights which slows traffic down by at least 50 percent. Once one gets through the gauntlet of traffic lights, traffic flows fairly smoothly again.

So, thanks again, Mr. Arbi, for showing us that common sense goes a long way to solving many of the traffic problems experienced in other countries. Too bad we don't seem to have any of that here.

JOHN R. FENTON

Jakarta