Indonesian diplomats champion human rights in UN

Indonesian diplomats champion human rights in UN

Endy M. Bayuni, The Jakarta Post/Geneva

It is spring in Geneva, and it is time for the Indonesian
government to rally its diplomats to speak on behalf of the
country on the question of human rights. It is not because this
city overlooking Mont Blanc is nice and cool to visit this time
of the year, but because for six weeks ending April 22, the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights convenes for its annual
session.

This year, the 61st session takes on a new meaning for
Indonesia. Makarim Wibisono, who heads Indonesia's Permanent
Mission to the United Nations here, chairs the meeting. It is
therefore not only his leadership that is being tested, but
Indonesia's overall conduct and its human rights record, which
will be scrutinized much more so than in the past.

Since protocol limits Makarim's space to maneuver on behalf of
his country (as chair, he must remain neutral), it was left to
the army of diplomats from his office in Geneva, plus backups
sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta and the
Indonesian mission at the UN office in New York, to take up the
cause.

With an Indonesian as president of the commission, how should
Indonesian diplomats, whose job it is to defend the country's
human rights policies and record -- right or wrong and good or
bad -- conduct their mission in the meeting halls and corridors
of the Palais des Nations?

In the 1990s, when Indonesia's human rights record was among
the poorest in the world, its diplomats would have been
aggressively defensive, at times attacking the critics before
being attacked, knowing that they were defending the
indefensible.

Not this time around. There is little cause to be overly
defensive, and it is very good for Indonesia to be seen as
championing the cause of human rights. With human rights
conditions at home improving, the diplomats have every reason to
be more confident in Geneva.

"We can hold our heads up today, and not down as in the past,"
one of the diplomats quipped.

Indonesia is no longer a target country in the commission, and
with East Timor no longer under its occupation, the problems of
East Timor are not Jakarta's anymore. Even when human rights
violations in Aceh and Papua came up during the session,
Indonesian diplomats did not switch to denial mode the way they
were trained to in the past, but acknowledged the problems and
stated that the government was doing all it could to resolve
them.

It is what the diplomats here call bermain cantik (playing it
smart).

"In the past, it was a case of 'right or wrong my country',"
Ambassador Eddi Hariyadhi, who heads the Indonesian delegation to
the session, said.

"If the government says A, we have to say A, although in
reality it's B. Now, if an Indonesian delegate could not answer a
question, rather than issuing a denial, he would simply say, let
me check first."

Indonesia, or at least the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is
well prepared for the new image that it is trying to project as a
nation that protects and promotes human rights. In the 2001
reshuffle at the ministry, human rights issues came under a full
directorate, reflecting the importance attached to the issue in
the country's diplomacy.

With the Commission on Human Rights' session entering the
phase of drafting and debating resolutions, the Indonesian
diplomats are sent to the various halls where initial discussions
are held.

Indonesia is considering co-sponsoring at least 20 of them
altogether, according to diplomats. Eddi said a discussion is
also under way with the United States to explore the possibility
of jointly proposing a resolution on freedom of expression.
Sharing a platform with the United States on human rights would
have been unthinkable in the 1990s.

In spite of the change in style and approach by Indonesia,
some of Indonesia's traditional detractors are not impressed.

"For those expecting a visionary and bold statement from this
year's chair of the commission, they would have been disappointed
with Indonesia," Forum Asia, a Bangkok-based human rights
organization, said in a statement.

It noted Indonesia's attempt to distance itself from the past
regime's brutal practices, as implied in Minister of Foreign
Affairs Hassan Wirayuda's speech to the session in March. On
this, the forum said: "For Indonesian diplomats hoping to abandon
the previous decades of defensive diplomacy to defend Indonesia's
deplorable human rights records, this speech will not be useful."

Asia Forum reserved its harshest criticism for Indonesia's
continued association with the so-called Like-Minded Group, which
it said consisted largely of countries with human rights
problems. Indonesia's integrity as the chair of the Commission on
Human Rights has been completely lost with its decision to stick
to the coalition of the notorious Like-Minded Group.

Rafendy Jamin of the Human Rights Working Group, an umbrella
of human rights organizations in Indonesia, noted that while
Ambassador Makarim seemed to have made a good impression in
chairing the session, the same could not be said about some of
his staff.

He recalled the one occasion when an Indonesian diplomat
walked out of a side-meeting on Papua after exercising his right
of reply, but without bothering to listen to rebuttal. "That's
the old regime's practice," Rafendy says.

Rafendy says his organization will, throughout the coming
year, be closely watching out for inconsistencies between what
the government says here in Geneva and what it does back home.

"We'll count how many resolutions it co-sponsored, how many it
endorsed here. When we get home, we will demand that the
government comply with all these resolutions, even if they are
non-binding."