RI seeking Pacific support for national integrity

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.