Diplomat says diplomacy is everybody's business

Diplomat says diplomacy is everybody's business

DEPOK, West Java (JP): Senior diplomat Soendaroe Rachmat
called on experts yesterday to examine Indonesia's foreign
policies and suggest improvements, so that the country could
answer its critics abroad.

"Diplomacy is much too important a business to be left to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs alone," he said during a seminar on
Indonesian foreign policy at the University of Indonesia which
opened here yesterday.

While acknowledging that the service has been severely
criticized from abroad, he said that one of the first steps that
should be taken towards improvement is to hold public debates to
study the existing policies.

"There hasn't been any debates held to really analyze
Indonesia's official foreign policy," he said. "If the official
policies are not analyzed (and corrected), then we can't expect
much from unofficial attempts at diplomacy."

The seminar was one in a series of events held by the
university's international relations department to commemorate
its 10th anniversary.

The seminar also featured Vice Governor of the Institute of
National Resilience Juwono Sudarsono, who said that the global
flow of information has adversely affected Indonesia's diplomacy.

"We are in a weak position in this ongoing competition of
image creation," he said. "Foreign TV stations like Cable News
Network are displaying our bad side without bothering to report
the whole story."

He cited as an example the footage of a recent clash between
the security officers and supporters of the Indonesian Democratic
Party's leader Megawati Soekarnoputri which some foreign
newscasts have been showing for the past several days.

"CNN only showed the harsh actions that the military took
against the supporters. It did not show the soldiers who also
suffered injuries in the rioting."

Juwono, who is also a professor of international relations at
the university's School of Social and Political Sciences, said
there are groups of people who maintain negative perspectives
about Indonesia, no matter what the country does to improve its
image.

"There's a tremendous anti-Indonesian sentiment among many
groups of people abroad. No matter how hard we try to talk sense
into them, they will still view us in contempt," he said.

Juwono agreed with Soendaroe that building a good image of the
country should not be left to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
alone. "The ministry has its limits," he said. Besides, "our
foreign policy is centralized and hinges on the President as the
chief of our diplomatic corps."

Another speaker, Kusnanto Anggoro from the Centre of Strategic
and International Studies, said he doubted whether the ministry
was able to withstand the rush of globalization, and that changes
could soon be made effectively.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is but one component in the
whole decision-making process here," he said. "It can't even do
anything to change the current tradition of having to give
ambassadorial posts to Armed Forces members."

The Department of International Relations at the University of
Indonesia was established in 1985. (06)