IMF implementation

IMF implementation

Having read your article IMF package not in line with the
constitution, March 9, 1998, I could not help feeling even more
sorry for the millions of Indonesian whose welfare, health and
even life are at stake through the games the government thinks it
can play with the IMF by constantly bypassing or torpedoing the
agreed upon implementation measures.

The latest evasion package, however, by taking the
Constitution, which was drawn in 1945, and to mention that IMF
measures that were agreed upon in 1998 and signed by nobody less
than the President himself, who for me appears to be already
displaying ambivalence, especially when the argument states that
"Indonesia's economy shall be based on family principles." I
wonder why the IMF package was signed in the first place
supposing the contents of the Constitution were known at that
time as well.

I also wonder whether the Indonesian government is engaged in
a kind of high-stake poker game by daring the IMF and all other
nations which were initially prepared to come to its aid and to
offer advice to let the fourth-largest nation in the world go
down the drain without further financial help, which it certainly
would.

The price for this, however, will be paid by the people who
have no way or means to participate in this "game".

ROLAND WOEHRLE

Jakarta