RI human rights concept respected

RI human rights concept respected

JAKARTA (JP): A top U.S. diplomat yesterday praised Indonesia's concept of human rights only three days after Washington criticized Jakarta for extending the prison sentence of a local labor union leader convicted of instigating a riot last year.

Senator Richard Lugar told panelists of a Worldnet Dialog program that Indonesia's concept of human rights is well developed although there are still differences in opinion between the American people and the leadership in Jakarta over the issue.

Lugar said such differences pop up from time to time because many leaders in Asia are of the opinion that economic progress can only be achieved with a very strong government hand or through authoritarian leadership.

"The general theory of our friends in Asia is that economic progress comes only with a more authoritarian leadership and that if too many choices occur or too many ventures on human rights.., then the energy of the country may be dissipated and the concerted push for economic progress might be less," Lugar said.

The program, a long distance interview conducted through satellite link, involved panelists from South Korea, Japan and Indonesia. The topic focused on "The New Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy in East Asia".

Replying to one of the panelists' questions, Lugar said that U.S. foreign policy should be more thoroughly engaged with the rest of the world and, "not as a dominating partner or policeman but rather as a consistent friend who is there to help that the world order progresses.

Expressing his own view, he said that democracy, a market economy, and prosperity should move hand in hand.

"I believe that stability of a country comes in from fostering human rights and economic development simultaneously, difficult as that may be," he added.

Some Western countries have strongly criticized Indonesia for alleged violations of human rights and freedom of speech and freedom of the press, particularly after Jakarta banned three widely-read media, two weekly news magazines and one tabloid, last year.

But Lugar said the human rights problem was not the only "argument we're having all the time." Although "there have been internal disputes on the function of Indonesian democracy and free press," he said, Washington has been working well with Jakarta and the U.S. government has a lot more understanding and greater interest in the Indonesian political development now than it had before.

Lugar, a Republican from Indiana and member of the Intelligence Committee and a long-standing member of the Foreign Relations Committee, has twice visited Indonesia.

During his visit in 1986, he met President Soeharto and it was then that "President Soeharto took time to tell me about democracy in Indonesia ... and how the political parties were formed", the senator told panelists in Jakarta, who were represented by Hasan Sazili, vice chairman of the defense and foreign affairs commission of the House of Representatives and Derek Manangka, a journalist from the daily Media Indonesia. (ego)