Dengue fever

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