Jakarta dresses up to greet APEC delegates

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): After a facelift and weeks of preparation, Jakarta is ready to welcome all APEC leaders and delegates as well as foreign businessmen and journalists.

"Jakarta is proud to host the APEC leaders meeting and I extend a warm welcome to all media representatives... I am confident that exciting discoveries await visitors as they explore the various delights of the City of Jakarta," Governor Surjadi Soedirdja said. Surjadi started his term of office in 1992.

Aware that the eyes of the world will be on Jakarta during the APEC meetings, and that journalists will arrive by the thousands, the municipality has prepared extra attractions to entice and impress its thousands of guests.

Package tours will be offered free of charge, including tours to the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (Indonesia's Miniature Park) and Bogor Presidential Palace on Saturday, Nov. 12 and Sunday Nov. 13.

Press dinners are also on the schedule, including one hosted by the Kompas newspaper group on Friday, Nov. 11 and one co- hosted by the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunication and the Ministry of Information on Sunday, Nov. 13.

Head of Jakarta Tourism Office Fauzi Bowo said five-star hotels where the delegates will be staying will participate in the Jakarta International Food Festival in cooperation with local, well known restaurants.

There are many other attractions across the city. Jakarta does not want to miss this opportunity to promote itself and Indonesia.

This 467-year-old city, named Batavia by the Dutch who colonized the archipelago for three-and-a-half centuries, showcases the economic success Indonesia has accomplished in 49 years of independence, as well as its social and cultural effects, positive and negative. Human interest stories abound for journalists to report.

The success is clear to see: Dozens of skyscrapers along Sudirman, Thamrin, Rasuna Said and Gatot Subroto, Jakarta's main thoroughfares. Elite entertainment centers like Planet Hollywood and The Hard Rock Cafe which present local talent as well as imported class acts.

But mingling with the business and entertainment centers are the slums, which cover 2,880 of the 65,000-hectare Jakarta area. In the less fortunate sections of the city, laborers, vendors, street hawkers and beggars play the game of survival every day.

Clearing away

There are 8.5 million people living in Jakarta and another three million commute everyday from satellite towns, Tangerang, Bekasi, Bogor, to work here. The next century will see Jakarta joining the mega-cities.

"Population is still the main problem in Jakarta," Surjadi said.

Surjadi places housing the poor and curbing the high rate of urbanization at the top of his agenda for his administration.

But as in most major cities in the developing world, Jakarta's efforts to beautify itself compete with migrants who flood the streets either as hawkers, vendors or beggars.

And when Jakarta is assigned to host great events, municipal officials, eager to clean up the streets, engage in a kind of tug of war with street vendors. Such a fight took place six weeks before the Non-Aligned Movement summit in September, 1992.

Jakarta started clearing away the "eyesores" 45 days before the series of APEC meetings began earlier this month.

Chief of the Municipal Public Order Office Kusaeni Budiantoro said, so far, his office has netted 286 panhandlers and vagrants, 193 street-side traders, 32 traffic-light traders, 12 three-in- one children, 12 street singers, 60 prostitutes and 20 prostitute-transvestites from main the thoroughfares where APEC delegates are expected to traverse.

During the NAM summit most of those netted were kept at the Pondok Bambu rehabilitation center in East Jakarta, until the end of the meeting.

"For me it's acceptable. Our culture dictates we put on our best clothes to show our deepest respect to honorable guests paying us a visit," an anonymous municipal official said.

However, to some, the practice smacks of hypocrisy. And such dressing up and clean-up campaigns usually trigger protests.

The Jakarta Street Vendors Association, for example, mailed letters to all papers protesting against the cleansing operation on Oct. 26.

"We do not know what the APEC meeting is for. We have only been told that many foreign guests are coming here for the meeting.

"Selling food and drink and other goods along the streets is our only source of income. How can we support our families if the municipality prevents us from doing our job?" the association's leader, Sukirno said.

The outcries of the disadvantaged people found an echo in some high-ranking officials, something which did not happen during the NAM summit.

Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono, chairman of the APEC Host Committee, voiced his concern over the fate of those affected by preparations for the APEC leaders meeting.

"Don't go all out in the name of APEC. I'm embarrassed," the minister said some days before the kickoff of the APEC meetings at the Jakarta Convention Center.

Days-off

One problem the municipality is very concerned about during the APEC meetings is traffic congestion.

With 6,779.5 kilometers of streets, used by 2,411,628 vehicles--mostly private cars--every day, traffic is a nagging problem to Jakarta.

When a general rehearsal was staged on Nov. 1 to see how far the traffic would be affected during the stay of the APEC leaders and their trip to Bogor for the meeting, a total gridlock took place.

The experiment prompted the government to declare Nov. 14 and 15 public holidays in Jakarta. But in Bogor only Nov. 15, the day of the forum, was pronounced a holiday.

Before Nov. 14 and 15 were declared public holidays under a presidential decree (when APEC leaders are here), the governor had repeatedly appealed to the public to avoid the main thoroughfares during those two dates.

The case was different with the NAM summit when the more than 100 leaders all stayed at the Jakarta Hilton Hotel and needed only to walk through a tunnel to get into the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) for their meetings.

The government felt it necessary to dispel allegations that the measure had anything to do with security.

"The national stability is quite solid," Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman said.

Since most private and public offices have adopted the five- day work week, the additional two public holidays will provide workers with a very long weekend

Trains and buses have been fully booked by people who want to enjoy the long weekend out of the city.

Jakarta is likely to be deserted, allowing the APEC leaders' convoys very smooth traffic, for the meetings, the welcome dinner on Monday and the farewell dinner on Tuesday.