The APEC summit
The APEC summit
Jakarta's main roads are much cleaner these days. Perhaps for
the first time in history flowers are arranged at many strategic
points, particularly along the city's major thoroughfares.
Beggars and street vendors have vanished overnight from
crossroads.
It is not often that one see such a thorough facelift in this
capital city.
All those cleaning-up measures are, of course, in preparation
for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings which
are scheduled to start rolling this week. As the organizer, the
Indonesian government is apparently determined to do its best to
be a good host.
It seems that nothing is being left to chance. Thousands of
troops are to be deployed to ensure that the conferences and
meetings will proceed in complete safety. Hundreds of pricey
brand new gleaming cars have been imported to transport the
visiting heads of government and their entourages during their
stay here. New telecommunications lines and facilities have been
installed to assist the thousands of journalists who are expected
to converge here to cover the meetings.
One top official has even gone as far as to propose that the
people of Jakarta and Bogor simply take a holiday on Nov. 14 and
15, when the APEC summit will be held. This, supposedly, is to
ensure that no traffic jams will occur during the conferences.
It is very apparent that the government is ready to go all out
to ensure that the APEC summit will be a success.
Of course one may wonder why it takes an international event
such as the APEC summit for the capital city to be cleaned up.
Why it is that it always requires some major excitement like
this, or the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in 1992, to move the
authorities into action to put things in order? One might be led
to believe that all this is a reflection of the lack of a real
will on the part of the powers that be to make things more
livable in the capital.
Of course, the residents of the capital themselves should be
expected to make efforts to ensure that Jakarta will be a good
host and that the summit will proceed in a most satisfactory
manner. But it seems sad that the authorities may well have to
issue a reminder to the public to behave properly during the
summit.
For example, we have heard too many stories of taxi drivers
cheating their unsuspecting foreign passengers. Or there are
traders who double or triple their prices when dealing with
foreign customers.
Strict measures against perpetrators of such practices should
be taken on a routine basis, and not only during, or before, a
big international event.
As for the little contributions many of us may already have
made to the preparations for the summit, as good hosts we all
surely feel no regrets at doing our part to see that all goes as
smoothly.
Clean streets, discipline and business integrity aside, the
next logical questions would be: Are all those undertakings
worthwhile? Are there any accepted criteria by which we will be
able to determine if the upcoming APEC meeting is really a
success?
Anyone with a sensible mind would surely agree that to be a
good host and to ensure that the conference goes as smoothly as
possible are things that we are capable of doing. But what about
the true substance of the event itself? For instance, would we be
able to call the APEC summit successful if the final declaration
does not set a timetable for a free-trade program?
One could easily conclude that it is beyond our power to make
sure that the coming APEC summit produces a satisfactory
decision, since all decisions must be reached by consensus.
Still, whatever decisions the summit might produce, the fact
that a meeting of 18 heads of government -- or their delegates --
representing a combined population of 2.2 billion and accounting
for 41 percent of world's trade, is a spectacular event in
itself. Surely there will be a lot of positive results from such
a conference and the bilateral meetings between the summit.