Federal state best answer: Riau leader

JAKARTA (JP): A federal state is the best option to resolve the row over unfair revenue sharing between the central government and Riau province, a prominent local figure insisted on Friday.

Tabrani Rab, a lung disease specialist better known as a cultural figure, said here that a federal state would give people in the province more opportunities to manage their resources without dispensing with Jakarta's authority.

"There is no other way but a federal state, unless what is now going on in Aceh will happen in Riau or other provinces which for a long time have been under the heel of the central government," Tabrani told The Jakarta Post.

He was here to address a seminar on empowering U.S. oil company Caltex, which operates in Riau, for the welfare of its local workers.

Separatist movements have been on the rise in Aceh and Irian Jaya, due in large part to disappointment over the government's failure to allocate adequate shares of revenue gained from exploitation of natural resources in the provinces.

Tabrani, who has declared himself the president of a sovereign Riau, said the province did not inherit a warring culture which was why it was not the site of clashes despite growing public resentment against Jakarta.

The government has decided to reserve Riau 15 percent of the country's share of oil revenue, 5 percent higher than that demanded by Tabrani. The country receives 76 percent of gross revenue from the new concession granted to Caltex, which will expire in 2002.

Tabrani was doubtful of the government's offer, saying that the government was not prepared to lose millions of dollars it was used to earning. Jakarta also badly needs money to pay its whopping foreign debts. Oil exploitation in Riau generates 800,000 barrels of crude oil per day, more than half of national daily oil product.

Tabrani said he lost his trust in the government due to rampant corruption, citing state oil company Pertamina as the most recent example of the graft rife in government institutions.

A group of Riau people filed suit against President B.J. Habibie, representing the government, demanding US$22 billion in compensation from two decades of oil exploitation in the province. The court refused to hear the suit, but Tabrani made an appeal to the higher court.

He said he would consider appealing to the International Court if his case faltered in the local courts. (amd)