South demands better deal from North

JAKARTA (JP): An on-going international conference on human resource development turned into a yet another round of "North versus South debates".

Despite the organizer's urging that they adopt a new, less polarizing perspective on relations between countries in the two opposite hemispheres, the debates probed the political motives of the developed countries' "reluctance" to help the developing countries.

Some participants raised the issues of the imbalanced flow of information to the South and the one-sided press coverage of the North, not to mention the rising trade protectionism in industrialized countries.

Dr. Rudiger Machetzki of the Institute of Asian Affairs, Germany, said Asian countries struggled out of their economic difficulties with relatively minimal help from other, especially European, countries.

Machetzki told some 200 participants from 37 countries that Asian's self-reliance has created a momentum which would be instrumental in creating more successful trade and economic cooperation with the West.

He urged the developing countries to strengthen cooperation with the developed countries and overcome obstacles such as the mistrust between both parties.

"Never stop pressing your demands for fair, just conditions," he said. "Use every international encounter everywhere to voice your demands, and be persistent."

He tempered his urging, however, by saying that by no means should the Southern countries sacrifice cooperation among themselves. "Never underestimate the potential for regional, South-South cooperation," he said.

Commitment

Machetzki spoke more specifically about the economic relations between members of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Western European countries, saying that the West's commitment to the region is "deplorably low".

"The Western European economies, particularly that of Germany, are essentially molded by medium scale companies...which are by nature more hesitant to venture into non-traditional market," he said.

The Western European societies are, in general, inclined to preserve the comfortable socio-economic status quo. "Poor people want to change things. Wealthy people want things to remain the way they are," he said.

Machetzki said the West' preference for Eastern Europe market instead of ASEAN was an act of "shortsightedness".

By staying away from ASEAN market, the Western countries "miss the dual nature of the Asian challenge, which are the dynamic combination of low cost and high technology".

"There are many countries that dispose of cheap labor, but nowhere outside of Asia does one find highly qualified low cost labor," he said.

Indonesian Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie in his address used the forum to introduce his concepts for "accelerated evolution" for developing countries in catching up with the economy of industrialized countries.

He named Japan, United States, Canada and European countries as regions whose transformation from agricultural into industrialized societies went through smooth evolutionary process due to lack of ethnic, cultural and language constraints.

Asia, South America, Middle East and Africa, on the other hand, would be able to catch up by accelerating their pace and overcoming the hurdles of cultural, language and ethnic constraints.

"I am against leapfrogging (of development effort) because..it is unpredictable," he said.

Advanced transformation in developed countries was made at the expense of the developing countries in the South, who for decades have become the market place of the developed regions' products.

"Now, who is going to pay for transformation in the developing countries?" he asked. "Mankind will, directly or otherwise,"

He believed, however, that developing countries could benefit from their encounter with industrialized countries. These benefits include fast and low cost information and data processing systems, better understanding of macro and micro economics and infrastructure, and better understanding of human resource development.

The conference, which was opened by President Soeharto on Wednesday, winds up today. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is scheduled to address the gathering about the problems and prospect of the North-South relations. (swe)