Reforms linked to war against terrorism
Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Foreign investors are waiting for Indonesia to make considerable progress on a range of reforms linked to the war against terrorism, United States Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph Boyce told a discussion on Thursday.
Boyce said the country's reforms in regard to promoting law and order, reforming the judiciary, implementing new anti-money laundering laws and passing counter-terrorism legislation have "quite frankly lagged".
In the discussion titled U.S. Perspectives on the War on Terrorism, Boyce said that the link between reforms in these areas and the fight against terrorism was the fact that the best weapon against extremism were good jobs and an optimistic sense about the future. Creating good jobs, he said, required major investments like building factories, infrastructure projects, service companies and investing in mines.
"Indonesia should fundamentally improve the environment for investment, both domestic and foreign. Indonesia's legal system, however, is still ineffective and corrupt," Boyce criticized.
He added that Indonesian companies could also easily manipulate courts to criminalize standard business disputes.
"In the past months, five American investors have been forced into court on charges that would never hold up in a U.S. court. Each of these companies have shown a long-term commitment to Indonesia, but still finds itself lost in a non-transparent legal maze," Boyce told audiences.
The discussion, organized by the Financial Club Jakarta and the Indonesian Council on World Affairs, was attended by former defense minister Juwono Sudarsono, former foreign minister Ali Alatas, foreign ambassadors, entrepreneurs, Indonesian scholars and academics and representatives of international organizations.
Boyce added that even as investors understood that the Indonesian government officially had no direct control over the courts, they would need to see principled leadership on legal reform from the highest levels of the Indonesian government.
The ambassador said support from the U.S. and Indonesia's other development partners would give Indonesia a chance to put into place the underlying laws and institutions to fight terrorism more effectively.
"Potential investors will take note of improvements in Indonesia's institutions and calculate that their investments will be safer as a result," he said.
The U.S. has pledged assistance to Indonesia in the counter- terrorism field, among others, by offering to help implement the newly passed anti-money laundering bill and establish the Financial Transaction Center to investigate suspicious financial transactions.
When Boyce said that Indonesia should take a much stronger stance against terrorism, scathing questions arose from the forum in regard to Washington's extremely cautious behavior toward Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict, a matter which has caused uproar among Muslim groups in Indonesia.
Ali Alatas told Boyce that apart from being indignant, Indonesia was bewildered over the matter.
"What's the secret that such a small country as Israel... a country that is so dependent on the U.S., remains in defiance of the almighty President of the United States and the almighty United Nations Security Council, and still gets away with it (the killings)?" Ali asked Boyce.
Boyce did not answer this question directly, but explained later that there was an ongoing crisis in the U.S.-Israel relationship, which was still playing itself out.
"It's a real challenge for the U.S. today as the lone remaining superpower. You are constantly called upon to either defend yourself against not doing enough because of your responsibility and role, or to defend yourself against the charge that you are doing too much, too fast, intervening," Boyce said.