Paris Club generosity is for the Acehnese

Paris Club generosity is for the Acehnese

Kornelius Purba, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A former finance minister once described negotiations with the
Paris Club as a humiliating experience -- humbly begging for debt
mercy in front of 19 sullen faces representing rich creditor
nations.

With disaster-struck -- previously war-torn -- Aceh now high
on the international sympathy radar, Minister of Finance Yusuf
Anwar may not need to be as embarrassed when he faces the Paris
Club to ask for a debt moratorium on Wednesday.

Major members of the club have already announced their
willingness to at least accept a moratorium on Indonesia's
sovereign debt. Up to the first semester of 2004, Indonesia's
foreign debt stood at US$137 billion, including $82.12 billion in
sovereign debt. About $3 billion alone is due in principal
payments this year.

With the moratorium, the government can allocate the money to
rebuild Aceh.

The world has been seemingly united in the past two weeks in a
conspiracy of hope to help the victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami
which has killed 155,000 people in several countries. Two-thirds
of the fatalities were Indonesians.

The scale of the disaster has even pulled at American
heartstrings so much that it has succeeded in just a few short
days where diplomacy failed for years: getting Washington to
temporarily lift the arms embargo to allow Indonesian Military
transport planes used to fly in supplies to get spare parts.

"You are now swimming in a pool of money. You may even find it
suffocating with all the aid flooding in," an Asian diplomat
quipped after announcing the amount his country was giving in aid
for Aceh last week.

Even without the tsunami, the plight of the province is
saddening. Under bitter military occupation -- in the guise of
various terminologies -- since 1989, Aceh has literally been a
killing field.

Let's just hope that no one during the Paris Club meeting
draws parallels between the tsunami deaths and the number of
civilians killed during military operations -- about 10 times the
number of Acehnese killed during military operations in the last
15 years.

The Acehnese, a proud and independent folk, have weighed
heavily on the country's leaders since first president Sukarno.
Sadly all eventually opted to use force quell the people's
demands for justice.

It is never easy to silence the voice of freedom, especially
the Acehnese. Two Paris Club members -- former colonial powers
the Netherlands and Japan -- know exactly from firsthand
experience how difficult it is to break the spirit of the
Acehnese.

But this recent natural disaster could be a blessing in
disguise for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in a province
where most voters voted for him in the September presidential
election.

The central government's greatest enemy is actually not the
separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) despite its armed rebellion,
but the people who feel the government behaves as a colonial
power. The government, which extracts their natural riches, uses
guns to as a response to their complaints and abuses their rights
as human beings whenever possible.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's government has made it clear that
it will demand an unconditional moratorium from the club on
Wednesday, including an exclusion from the obligation to have the
much-hated International Monetary Fund treatment. This time
Indonesia is using the Aceh card for debt relief and if possible
why not a total debt write-off? So far the most enthusiastic
supporter of the idea is Luxembourg which has no accounts
receivable here and is also not a member of the club.

But isn't the unconditional demand ridiculous? The money of
course is not for a spending-spree because it is given to help
the Acehnese people to rebuild their lives, no more and no less.
Indonesia can demand an unconditional moratorium, but the
creditors also have the right to ensure their money well spent.

But be careful Pak Yusuf! When you are too demanding with the
Paris Club, in response your irritated host may quip, "Enak di lu
kagak enak di gua (it is good for you, but not for me)."