Envoy Fulda saying goodbye to the diplomatic game

Fritz Kuhlmann, Contributor, Jakarta

Sometimes a diplomat needs to take to the sports field instead of working the corridors of power. German ambassador Gerhard Fulda recently spent some time among young athletic hopefuls in Papua, attending a talent-scouting session.

The event was supported by the government of Germany, which sent a trainer from the German Olympic committee to help in the quest to build a new elite of Papuan sports figures.

Yet it's really not so much about running or jumping, but about politics.

"When some of these young Papuans one day become part of the national team of Indonesia, this might be far more important than any oh-so brilliant political speech," Fulda explained.

Fulda's heart was in the event because it was one of his last activities as German ambassador to Indonesia. On June 17, he will leave the country to retire from diplomatic service at age 65.

It's also sports that made Fulda become a diplomat. As a child in Germany under U.S. occupation after World War II in the late 1940s, more than anything else he wanted to watch soccer matches.

Unable to afford a ticket, he tried to obtain free entry as a reporter from his school newspaper. But as the newspaper was controlled by the Americans after the end of the Nazi regime, Fulda first had to attend some of their seminars about democratization and world politics.

It kindled his interest in foreign affairs -- and years later, the boy who once loved nothing but soccer successfully applied for diplomatic service.

"I don't regret one minute of my life as a diplomat," Fulda said of a career that took him to Rome and Brussels, among other places. Outside Europe, he specialized in Muslim countries, representing Germany in Saudi Arabia as well as in Egypt. And even before doing all that, he wrote his thesis on law in Cairo.

"So I loved that my final professional experience was in Indonesia," Fulda said of the country, a Muslim country but quite different from Arab lands.

He recently accompanied German deputy minister of economic cooperation and foreign aid Uschi Eid during her visit here. Eid said: "Indonesia could be a role model for the Muslim world, due to it's tradition of an open, tolerant Islam".

So even if the bombings in Bali and at Jakarta's JW Marriott hotel marked Fuldas' stay in the country, he stressed that German interest here does not focus on terrorism but on democratization.

"There have been significant changes since 1998," Fulda said, especially in that decentralization and the installment of the constitutional court had full support from the various German agencies.

"It's rare to see those in power giving something of it to other institutions, as it is happening in Indonesia."

Still, Fulda experienced himself that things are far from perfect.

"When I imported my car from back home, customs officials did not release it for weeks and weeks," Fulda remembered. "They made it quite clear that if I would bribe them, I would get my car at once."

He refused, "of course".

As an ambassador, he could find other means of transport until the customs grew tired of the game. But ordinary citizens suffer quite a lot from the fact that public service here tends to ask for kickbacks, Fulda observed. "There is still a lot to do."

Surprisingly, together with Fulda, almost half of the senior staff, or one quarter of the total staff of the embassy, are being transferred. This includes the deputy ambassador, one of the two political consultants, the specialist for Islamic issues and, soon, the military attache. Also, Fuldas' successor has yet to be nominated.

In the German community in the country, the move is seen with some skepticism -- especially because it is happening right before the presidential elections.

The reason for the exodus, though, is simple: for all the German diplomatic staff around the globe, there is one date each year to switch from one job to another, and that's now.

"It's just coincidence, just bad luck that so many of us are now leaving Jakarta," the ambassador explained. "But then again, it gives the new staff the opportunity for a real new start."

In fact, that seems to be what will happen. Not everyone in the foreign ministry has been fully satisfied with the performance of the German embassy in the past few years, sources said. And in the German community in Jakarta, there are also critical voices.

"The ambassador took care of a problem that was presented to him when he thought it was interesting," one German businessman said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "But for quite a few of our problems he just did not take any interest."

Others close to human rights groups say they liked ambassador Heinrich Seemann, Fuldas predecessor, better. Most agree that he was a great communicator.

But that comparison might be misleading, other Germans say.

"When Seemann was in office in 1998, it was much easier to gain an impressive record because there were simply so many things happening," one longtime observer stresses. "It was an exceptional period."

However, German-Indonesian relations in general are good and hopefully will remain so, Fulda said. And he even thinks that the economic ties -- still significant but weakened by the effects of the Asian economic crisis -- will become more important with time.

"Right now, everyone looks only at China," Fulda said. "But this, too, will change one day."

He himself will start a second career after his life as a diplomat. Fulda is a collector of traditional arts and handicrafts, and he especially appreciates the ikat of Indonesia. He plans to open a gallery in Berlin with a focus on Islamic art.

Fulda doesn't think that this means exploiting the heritage of Muslim countries, as some may see it. On the contrary, he hopes to become a promoter of Islamic art -- in his own way, an ambassador once again.