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."