Effective diplomas need not be obnoxious

Irawan Abidin, Senior Diplomat, Jakarta

I have been deeply saddened by a recent editorial of The Jakarta Post titled, "H.E. Gelbard's departure" in which it tried to bring out a saving grace of the controversial American diplomat at the expense of the Indonesian Foreign Service.

The passage that was particularly saddening read: "If only Indonesia's ambassador around the world could be as tenacious as Bob Gelbard in defending their country's interests and protecting its citizens in their accredited postings -- not necessarily imitating his style and mannerisms -- then Indonesian taxpayer's money in funding such an expensive state agency as the foreign service would have been well spent."

Although he masquerades as a diplomat, Gelbard is really nothing but an arrogant man who has made a vocation of damaging American-Indonesian relations by insulting his hosts. By behaving as he did, he hurt American interests in Indonesia and he increased, rather than allay, the danger to the lives and safety of American nationals in Indonesia.

I should admire the courage of the Post for going against the perception of most Indonesians and for its evenhandedness. It was the Post, after all, that published this writer's denunciation of Gelbard's arrogance ("RI hesitant to summon U.S.envoy", Sept. 14 Sept. 2000) on one of the many occasions that he flaunted his contempt of the Indonesian government.

But if praised is heaped on Gelbard at the expense of all Indonesian ambassadors and the entire Indonesian Foreign Service, I must express my disagreement.

Cases of Indonesians abroad who come to grief or fall into mischief are widely publicized, and each time there is the presumption of negligence or incompetence on the part of foreign service personnel; when the more likely reason could be the constraints imposed by realities of the situation in the foreign country concerned.

Indonesian diplomats could also behave like Gelbard and by doing so they could look like heroes in the ensuing publicity, but that would not make them more effective in helping our citizens abroad.

The fact is that Indonesian diplomats all over the world are doing the best they can to protect our citizens abroad with whatever resources they have and they get the job done as well as the diplomats of any other country. But when they get the job done, there is often little or no publicity about it.

It may be relevant to cite my own experience in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. There were then about 500,000 Indonesian workers in Saudi Arabia, mostly in the large cities. When Iraq began firing scud missiles at Saudi Arabia, many of our migrant workers panicked as the bombardment seemed to be indiscriminate.

First, they contacted the embassy by phone and then they flocked over for protection. With its limited resources, the embassy was able to provide them food and shelter.

With the embassy already inundated with refugees, something had to be done to forestall panic on the part of workers who had not yet made their way to the embassy. Press releases were sent out, radio appeals were aired and the ambassador made several television appearances telling Indonesian citizens to stay calm and to stay with their employers.

Requests was made through the Saudi Foreign Ministry to the Saudi authorities to provide protection to the Indonesian workers, to which authorities promptly responded. Soon, calm was restored among the workers and those who sought refuge in the embassy went back to their jobs.

Later, Indonesian immigration and manpower officials as well as representatives of labor recruitment agencies came to Riyadh to assess the situation of the migrant workers. As deputy chief of mission, I guided the visitors to far-flung places in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia namely al Khobar, Dahran and Dammam where our migrant workers were staying. It was not a difficult thing for me to locate them; I had been visiting them regularly long before the Gulf War.

During the riots in East Timor following the political exercise in which the East Timorese chose to separate from Indonesia, I was then envoy to the Holy See. Many Italians became emotional over reports of burning of churches, killing of religious persons and other atrocities by pro-Indonesian militias. The embassy and I received many angry telephone calls and tension ran so high that I reported to the police. The police authorities promptly sent plainclothesmen to guard and protect the chancery and the residence of the Indonesian ambassador.

Our envoy in Australia during the popular consultation or referendum and East Timor in August 1999 had to face a similar experience when he was confronted by a fierce demonstrations before the embassy and the ambassador's residence.

Ambassador Wiryono Sastrohandojo was forced to work from his residence for almost two months because the Chancery was completely surrounded by angry demonstrators. The police upon request by the Ambassador through the Foreign Ministry provided sufficient protection.

A similar incident also occurred in Madrid, Spain, whereby East Timor refugees went on a rampage, climbed up the walls and fences of the embassy and tried to enter the compound. But again, further damage was prevented by police at the request by then ambassador Rilo Pambudi.

If in those cases we had raved and ranted and insulted the governments of the host countries in the manner of Gelbard, I doubt very much if we could have served the interest of Indonesian citizens nor could have served to advance the interest of Indonesia in these countries.

The above examples are most probably par for the cause for Indonesian embassies over the world where, with maybe a few individual exceptions, Indonesian diplomats are working as best as they can, to promote Indonesia's interests and protect its citizens.