Govt, House plan bill on border areas

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Fearing that Indonesia might lose another island to neighboring countries, the government and House of Representatives (DPR) agreed on Wednesday to discuss a bill on the definitive demarcation of the country's borders.

"The House suggested that we should discuss a bill on border arrangements, and as the head of government I stressed that they have the legislative authority to discuss such a bill," President Megawati Soekarnoputri said after a consultation meeting with House leaders on Wednesday.

Megawati said that the request was made in response to the loss of Sipadan and Ligitan islands to Malaysia late last year after a long legal battle in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the Netherlands.

"Learning from this case, the House underlined the importance of the definitive demarcation of our borders," Megawati said during a joint press conference with House Speaker Akbar Tandjung.

"And we, the government, agreed that the need to deal with border issues immediately is a crucial matter for the country," the President said.

Both the government and House leaders gave no timetable as to when the proposed bill would be initiated.

However, the government's position was immediately criticized by a noted analyst who said that the problem lay in the fact that there were too many departments dealing with border issues.

"Our weakness is that we do not have a single institution in charge of border issues, so while the enactment of a law is good, we need clear definitions as to who will be responsible for the implementation of the law," said Kusnanto Anggoro from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Considering that all border discussions involved other countries and had the potential for conflict, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should take charge of any border negotiations with neighboring countries, Kusnanto argued.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Marty Natalegawa concurred, saying that currently there were several different departments in charge of border issues.

"Border discussions with Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, for example, are handled by the Ministry of Home Affairs, while with regard to the Philippines, it is the Indonesian Military (TNI) that is in the forefront," Marty explained.

He said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had urged President Megawati to appoint one department to take charge of any border talks to prevent further confusion.

Immediately after Indonesia lost Sipadan and Ligitan islands to Malaysia in December, President Megawati designated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the coordinator for all border diplomacy in the country.

So far, however, Megawati has yet to put her decision in writing.

Since she assumed the presidency in July 2001, Megawati has made border issues one of her foreign affairs priorities, saying that the settling of border issues with neighboring countries as soon as possible would remove the potential for future conflict.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said earlier that Indonesia had no more island disputes with neighboring countries.