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)