RI still needs

RI still needs
Gen. Feisal

Armed Forces Commander Gen. Feisal Tanjung will remain in his
post for another year.

In the middle of June, the number-one man in the Armed Forces
will be 55 years of age, normal retirement age. But Law No.2/1988
states that the term of office of a high ranking officer can be
extended until the age of 60.

President Soeharto clearly believes that Gen. Feisal could
remain in the post for another year.

The extension of the service of the Commander of the Armed
Forces is not a common case, as the two former Armed Forces
Commanders, Gen. (ret.) Benny Murdani and Vice President Try
Sutrisno had similar experiences.

It is important to know that this country still needs Gen.
Feisal as a Commander of an Armed Forces which plays a crucial
role in maintaining national stability.

--Media Indonesia, Jakarta

Clinton's diplomacy

U.S. President Bill Clinton's diplomatic policies now appear
to be on the verge of straying off course. They have been badly
shaken by much harsh criticism recently from the media and
Congress over such issues as the United States's handling of the
Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict and the Haiti problem as well as
policies toward Asian countries.

A recent opinion survey by The Washington Post shows that only
40 percent of those polled support Clinton's diplomacy. The
support rate is far lower than the nonsupport rate of 53 percent,
the survey showed.

It is undeniable that the Clinton administration since its
inauguration one-and-a-half years ago has failed to come out with
a clear focus in diplomatic policy compared with its
significantly bolder stand in tackling domestic problems.

In the problem of the former Yugoslavia, President Clinton at
first had expressed his intention to play a role in solving the
Bosnia-Herzegovina disputes. He explicitly opposed the use of
military power by Serb forces and sought U.N.-backed air raids on
Serb-dominated areas and the lifting of a ban on weapons
shipments to Moslem forces in Bosnia.

In fact, air raids on a limited scale were carried out and
last week the Senate did approve a bill for lifting the U.S. ban
on arms exports to Bosnian Moslems. But serious initiatives for
solving the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict remain to be seen. On the
contrary, other Western countries worry that the lifting of the
arms export ban would serve to aggravate the situation.

--The Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo

Arafat's identity

Most Israelis understand the need for a political settlement
with the Palestinians, but most doubt the trustworthiness of
Yasser Arafat to make and keep an honorable and effective peace.
Arafat has a genius for inflaming these doubts. Recently
controversy over a recording of his call for a jihad, or Moslem
holy war, to liberate Jerusalem had barely died down when another
explosive excerpt was released from the same speech, secretly
taped earlier this month in a Johannesburg mosque. The latest
quote cuts directly to the issue of trust by suggesting that the
Palestine Liberation Organization's peace agreement with Israel
might soon be broken for a new round of fighting. Arafat's
attempts to reinterpret his bellicose remarks convince nobody.
Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin understandably challenges him to
reaffirm his personal commitment to the peace agreement.

Correctly, the Rabin government perseveres in its engagement
with Arafat, understanding that there is no realistic
alternative. But right-wing Israelis have exploited the political
gift handed them by the PLO leader, threatening the consensus
needed to expand a fragile peace. Arafat's inflammatory rhetoric
and conspicuous failures to condemn terrorist outrages endanger
the peace process to which he and Rabin have linked their fates.
So does early evidence of administrative disarray in areas newly
transferred to Palestinian control.

Arafat has had a hard time selling compromise to a Palestinian
community that both the PLO and more radical Islamic groups have
encouraged for years to hope for much bigger gains. What a
contrast today's heckling must seem with the adulatory applause
he used to win from sympathetic Third World audiences with empty
boasts of pushing Israel into the sea.

--The New York Times

Drop the MFN
pretense

Withdrawing China's most-favored-nation trading status might
mean something terrible for the geopolitics not just of Asia but
of the whole world: It would risk starting Cold War II. Revoking
MFN would create a hostile, suspicious and aggressive China.

The Clinton administration began to realize (too late) last
autumn that the only sensible China policy would be to uncouple
human rights from trade and deal with them as another element in
the increasingly dense Chinese-American relationship. Human
rights in China are a legitimate subject of American concern, as
even the Chinese have begun to admit by agreeing to argue their
case with the American and other governments. But there is, and
will be, no magic way to turn China quickly into a tolerant
democracy where civil liberties flourish. It does nobody,
including the scores or hundreds of thousands who are persecuted
in China, any good to pretend otherwise.

-- The Economist, London