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)."