Osvaldo goes west

The Your Letters column was light a year ago. This year, it's serious stuff. People are denouncing corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN). One year ago nobody knew what KKN was. I kind of miss the old days. Not because of KKN or the rupiah at Rp 2,500 to the U.S. dollar. I thought I would never write this but I even miss Buhari Abdu writing about Nigeria. Good days those when I trounced Greenpeace types and development-aid bureaucrats in Your Letters. I enjoyed reading about the expat crowd. The type who get together in clubs, import their hobbies here, are members of Hash House Harriers and fly to Singapore when they get the flu. Their concerns were the nonavailability of wine and planes not arriving on time. Nowadays, they write letters from home and long for their 15 minutes of colonial life.

Now it's my turn. I will leave Jakarta this week for my new posting. If you are one of those development-aid bureaucrats, you are already being taken care of by Donna Woodward. But if you are a Greenpeace type, writing about how much lead there is in the guts of Indonesian crickets, I will roll over you as I did with the ozone-hole rubbish and global-warming nonsense. And be careful when writing things about wireless, TDMA and access stuff. My Danish friends here say they will fax these articles to me immediately. You've been warned.

I thank the editor and The Jakarta Post staff for their work on my 152 letters. I wish the Indonesians luck in the future and, sincerely, hope the Almighty guide you guys, successfully, through the monetary crisis.

OSVALDO COELHO

Jakarta