Ministry of Foreign Affairs announces major revamp

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be revamped next year with the elimination of the two key directorates general: those for sociopolitical affairs and for economic relations.

In their place, there will be three directorates general with responsibilities based on geographical areas.

Announcing the planned restructuring, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda told reporters on Saturday night that changes were designed to improve the performance of the ministry.

The designation based on geographical areas would allow these units to be more focused in their work, he said.

There will be one directorate general dealing with Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) affairs, reflecting the importance Indonesia continues to attach to this regional grouping.

Another directorate general will deal with Asia, Pacific and Africa affairs; Europe and the Americas become the responsibility of one directorate general.

In addition, two separate directorates general will be created to deal with multilateral affairs, respectively for political and economic issues.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri signed the decree approving the changes on Oct. 10 but the details were only made public on Saturday at the end of a four-day meeting involving all 113 Indonesian ambassadors who were summoned home from their posts.

In all, the number of first-echelon positions in the new structure has been bolstered from the current eight to 10.

Hassan told the media briefing held after the ambassadors' meeting that the ministry was now in the process of nominating the officials to fill the first-echelon posts.

President Megawati, in her address to the meeting on Wednesday, urged the ambassadors to work to restore the image and credibility of the country abroad, particularly among investors and foreign aid donors.

The endless crises, and Indonesia's failure to address them, had severely undermined Indonesia's international reputation to the point that some countries even looked down on Indonesia, she said.

Hassan said he had told the ambassadors of the need to improve their role in servicing and protecting Indonesian citizens who lived and worked abroad.

"Indonesian embassies are not ivory towers," he said.