Effective diplomas need not be obnoxious

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.