Diplomats and diplomatists

The cartoonist was, of course, fully within his right to express his opinions about the repatriation of so-called "illegal workers" from Malaysia to Indonesia. The cartoon depicted a myriad of mini-dolls pouring out from a waste basket, labeled "illegal workers", in a flow that headed for the desk of a bureaucratic-looking official, who was confronting another set of mini-dolls seated on his desk, designating the status of unemployment (The Jakarta Post, Aug. 8).

The cartoon highlighted the news of the repatriation of some hundreds of thousands of illegal workers from Malaysia. Watching on TV the disembarkation of the workers with their families, including small children, at the port in Medan is, indeed, a very saddening drama.

Then followed the news that Malaysia turned down Indonesia's request to permit the workers to return to Malaysia sometime after their repatriation. (Post, Aug. 9 ).

If the above scenario on the one hand exposed the suffering and griefs affecting common people in search of a better life in a neighbor country, a quite paradoxical scenario emerged on the other hand, manifesting a rejoicing episode at the government level.

Indonesia inaugurated the first natural gas exports to Malaysia, worth US$6.2 billion, reportedly through a 96-kilometer undersea pipeline, from West Natuna to the offshore facilities of Petronas, Malaysia.

If the above mutually contradicting episodes are put together in a combined perspective of mutually complementary benefits, to form the basis for a reconciliatory effort to seek future solutions to the problem of Indonesian workers wishing to return to Malaysia, then a potential bargaining arrangement should not be dismissed so as to find a workable modality in terms of compromise.

The art of diplomacy should be utilized by the Indonesia side. To tackle the challenging task, perhaps not mere diplomats but rather diplomatists, meaning tactful diplomats, are called for.

S. SUHAEDI

Jakarta