'Foreign Ministry not to blame for RI's poor image'

JAKARTA (JP): Political observer Jusuf Wanandi said yesterday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not to blame for the country's poor image, since negative domestic developments often overrode the good work of Indonesian diplomats.

Jusuf is the chairman of the supervisory board of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

"It is a bit unfair if the foreign ministry is blamed for everything," he told The Jakarta Post.

Several political scientists have said that the Nobel peace prize awarded to East Timorese separatist leader Jose Ramos Horta proved the weakness of Indonesia's lobbying abroad.

Some have also questioned why diplomats did not anticipate and argue against Ramos Horta's selection by the Nobel committee. Others have asked whether the Indonesian Embassy in Oslo was completely ignorant of Horta's name being on the short list of Nobel prize candidates.

Jusuf said Indonesia was increasingly in the international spotlight, and that many events here were scrutinized overseas.

"Things that happen here reverberate abroad," he said, adding that the foreign ministry and diplomats had to contend with the criticism toward local developments.

He said the events which led to foreign criticism were often out of the ministry's hands.

Legislator Abu Hasan Sazili of House Commission I for political and foreign affairs said the foreign ministry was often a "victim", bearing the brunt of criticism for various domestic incidents.

"The foreign ministry is the institution which usually receives the corollary effect of anything happening at home," he told the Post.

"There are many other factors (apart from the performance of the foreign ministry) which influence East Timor's image abroad," he said.

He said that if there were no problems in the province, foreign critics could not exploit them.

Both Abu Hasan and Jusuf felt the best way to avoid criticism over East Timor was to improve work on the ground in the troubled province.

Nevertheless, Abu Hasan said diplomats should work harder: "We need to maximize our lobbying abroad, particularly in the United Nations General Assembly." (mds)