RI seeking Pacific support for national integrity

Indonesia hosted last week the Southwest Pacific Dialog in Yogyakarta. On the sidelines of the meeting, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda talked to The Jakarta Post's Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Kornelius Purba about the new forum, and also about the problems he faces in conducting Indonesia's diplomacy.

Question: What is the purpose of this forum?

Answer : We can discuss terrorism as a matter of global importance, and as this is a forum for dialog, any party may raise any issue. We all see the potential of dialog. All countries participating in this Southwest Pacific Dialog are very supportive of Indonesia, they support our territorial integrity and political unity. Members of the Pacific Islands forum also (earlier) expressed in their summit their support of Indonesia's integrity, including its territorial sovereignty over Papua.

They also support the introduction of special autonomy as an important means to solve the problems that we have in Papua. We planned this meeting to take place in Timika, but the recent incident that took place there made us reconsider the venue. But the original intention was, by organizing the meeting in Timika, we all wanted our partners of the dialog, to reiterate, in the very heart of Papua, their support for our territorial integrity and national unity.

You mean that through this forum Indonesia wants to ensure its territorial integrity, especially from the Pacific?

(We hoped for) a reiteration of support, because they said that openly, in a regional forum, the Pacific Islands forum. (Statements of support) also came from neighboring countries like Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Also, participants of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum, in their statements, have supported our territorial integrity and unity. Frankly, because of that, I was not worried about the possibility that they would raise the issue of Papua, for instance.

Even after the murder of Theys Hiyo Eluay and the killings in Timika?

You know, we are working on the recent Timika incident -- the police are still investigating it. In the Theys case there has been a clear outcome in the investigation process, meaning the perpetrators have been identified.

How can the government convince the international community of our efforts against terrorism, while domestic terrorism remains rampant?

From the very beginning I said that when we talk about terrorism, keep in mind that we actually do have threats of terrorism. We experienced such acts even before Sept. 11. That is why I very much disagree with those who said that we are talking about terrorism due to pressure from the U.S. We have a potential for terrorism, at least from two sources: First, separatist elements. Second from extremism -- extremist elements in our society.

There have even been cases of cross-border terrorism, meaning cooperation between domestic and foreign elements. In the bombing of the Atrium (shopping center) in Central Jakarta, the perpetrators have been sentenced to life. By saying that we have experienced terrorist incidents does not mean that such acts are automatically connected to international terrorism. However, we do not rule out the possibility (of such a connection).

But the international community still seems unsatisfied with our efforts to combat terrorism.

We have three people at least who are allegedly connected to international terrorism. We even have a big fish like al-Faruq, who was arrested by our authorities. Our police were able to identify and arrest the perpetrators. Of course the argument that we're not doing enough regarding some allegations is primarily related to the case of Jemaah Islamiyah. This remains a big issue with our neighbors, and some will expect us to act as vigorously as they do (regarding such allegations). But we have a different system.

Could you elaborate on President Megawati Soekarnoputri's plan to attend the summits of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Group of 15 Developing Countries and that of ASEAN?

The President has made a commitment to attend personally the APEC summit in Mexico, the G-15 summit in Venezuela and the summits of ASEAN+3, ASEAN+1 and ASEAN+South Africa. Summits are very important diplomatic gatherings, because important subjects are discussed at the highest level. I have difficulty in explaining to those of our audience who ask, "by going to the summit how many million dollars can you bring home?"

This is a part of the psychology of crisis: When you are in difficulty, you expect others to give you something and you really hope for something concrete. A summit, a meeting of a number of heads of state at one place, will certainly produce something, perhaps not in a matters of days, but years. Within the summit there are also bilateral summits. Commission I of the House of Representatives supports the President's presence at the multilateral summit, but not at bilateral meetings.

But why was the President absent from the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM)

In that summit we committed ourselves to host an ASEM foreign ministers meeting around May next year, and also an ASEM ministers of economics meeting, also in the middle of next year. The President's absence did not reduce our participation at all. These activities show that we are not lagging behind, we are actively participating at ASEM.

What is your comment on criticism of today's Indonesian diplomacy?

It is difficult to describe the merit of what we are doing. But look, there are a lot of initiatives that we are undertaking within the Asia Pacific region. We are going to assume the chairmanship of ASEAN, starting from Nov. 7. We are also giving consideration to initiating an Asia-Africa-wide series of subregional meetings.