Excited Bandung prepares to greet leaders

Excited Bandung prepares to greet leaders

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post/Bandung

There was a definite air of excitement and anticipation as the
city of Bandung made the final preparations ahead of Sunday's
commemoration of the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference. This quaint
city is out to impress.

Streets and Art Deco buildings in the vicinity of the Merdeka
Building, the venue for the commemoration activities, have been
cleaned up. Newly planted flowers and fresh coats of paint are
noticeable. Giant white canvases have been deployed to cover up
those buildings that could not be helped with a quick makeover.

Walking along the main thoroughfare Jl. Asia-Africa, the
sounds of angklung (traditional bamboo musical instruments) and
other instruments are heard drifting out of buildings as children
and musicians practice their welcoming performances.

"We took at least Rp 80 billion out of the city's coffers to
pay for the preparations," Bandung Mayor Dada Rosada proudly told
The Jakarta Post.

"That does not include renovations to the airport and Merdeka
Building, which were paid for by the provincial and central
governments."

The highlight of Sunday's commemoration will be a historical
walk by the Asian and African leaders along Jl. Asia-Africa to
the Merdeka Building. Once inside, the leaders will adopt a
declaration on a new strategic partnership between the two
continents.

Dada is nervous. Eager to put on a good show, he says he is
losing sleep because of anxiety over the preparations. At night
he patrols the streets looking for anything that might reflect
badly on his city.

"You know, Bandung looks beautiful at night. But some of the
unsightly things that are not noticeable during the day also
become apparent when there are not so many people bustling
about."

But the "beautification" of the city is not without its
critics. The city has used the opportunity to push thousands of
hawkers and vendors off the main streets of the city into the
alleys. Couples caught in the city's parks at night are being
stopped and asked to show identification cards to prove that they
are married.

"There are those who reject these efforts. But that is
normal," Dada said. "Our aim is to make the city pretty again,
and that is for the benefit of the majority of residents. Just
look at the main streets, they are all clean and the parks look
gorgeous."

The head of the provincial organizing committee for the event,
Nu'man Abdul Hakim, said everything was set to go. "The airport
is ready, the venue is ready for use and the roads are all
smooth. Only a few streets beneath the Pasteur-Surapati flyover
need a bit more work."

The provincial government, with financial assistance from the
central government, has also expedited the completion of the new
Cikampek-Purwakarta-Padalarang (Cipularang) toll road. Delegates
traveling by bus from Jakarta to Bandung on Sunday will be among
the first people to use this new toll road, which will cut the
travel time from Jakarta to Bandung from 3.5 hours to two hours.

Despite these assurances it is clear that the preparations are
also overwhelming the city. The devil is in the details, and as
of Thursday evening it was evident that many devilish details
still had to be worked out.

A decision on how to accommodate the thousands of delegates is
still being ironed out. For now organizers are planning to shut
down completely Jl. Braga beginning on Friday night in order to
set up a 200-meter-long air-conditioned tent to seat delegates.

"All the hotels near the venue are full," Nu'man said on
Thursday afternoon. Adding to his concern was the sudden change
in the travel arrangements made by the national organizing
committee for ambassadors and delegates, who were originally
going to travel between Jakarta and Bandung by train on Friday
night and Saturday morning. However, he has been informed that
they will now all be traveling by bus on the new toll road.

One can only imagine that Nu'man's headache is as bad as those
of Bandung drivers who must quietly suffer for a few days as
streets are shut down and traffic rerouted for the benefit of
their international guests.