Unspun

The best defense is attack. This must be the new doctrine of Indonesia’s Consul-General in the Malaysian State of Sarawak, which is, like many parts of Malaysia, enjoying Indonesia’s seasonal export of The Haze.

The Malaysains seem non plussed by such assertive diplomacy though, as evidenced by the comment below.

This murky retort from Jakarta’s envoy won’t do

07 Oct 2006 Comment by John Teo

MAYBE it was the fact that I have not really seen much of the sun in Kuching for most of the week as a result of the rapidly rethickening haze over almost the whole of Sarawak.

But to have the Indonesian Consul-General in Sarawak, Rubaya Thalib, screaming at you from a local newspaper front-page headlines:”Stop the blame game”, “Walk the talk”, soured my mood the entire day.

Since he was interviewed by the said local newspaper and happens to be his country’s chief diplomat in Sarawak, one can only conclude that his remarks were directed at Sarawakians and represented his country’s views.

We had thought that we had seen the worst of this year’s haze. But it is now back with a vengeance.

All the skyscrapers in Kuching seem to have disappeared from view. Face
masks, which have not made an appearance for quite some time, are again
coming into vogue.

Those lucky enough to have air-conditioning will be racking up expensive electricity bills as homes are sealed tight to keep the foul polluted air out and the air-conditioning goes full-blast day and night.

The state government is again under pressure to do something about the problem. It is promising another bout of expensive cloud- seeding, that is, if there are clouds to seed.

There is clamour anew that schools — already disrupted by the hand, foot and mouth disease earlier — be closed as the air reaches beyond the unhealthy threshold and respiratory problems multiply.

It, therefore, understandably cannot be the best time for diplomats
staffing Indonesia’s embassies and consulates throughout Malaysia and
Singapore. Just when they think they can finally come out in the open
again to face people without encountering funny if not outright hostile
looks, they are bombarded again with what must be interminably tedious
questions about what the Indonesian government is doing about this
decidedly unneighbourly yearly occurrence.

One would expect that these diplomats out in force offering profuse
apologies (as usual) and counselling — again! — patience. In short,
anything to ride out the temporary discomfort and awkwardness until the
following year. One definitely would not expect to be told — by
Indonesians, of all nationalities — to stop the “blame game” and to
“walk the talk”.

Rubaya continued: “If everyone is playing the blame game now, the
problem will not be solved. It will continue to happen. The problem now
is that there is a need to find a comprehensive permanent solution to
the matter.”

All very well said but all directed at the wrong audience. In case the
Indonesian diplomat does not already know, the blame game will stop the
minute his government “walks the talk”.

As Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid
has rightly reminded, Indonesia is the lone holdout among the Asean 10
in ratifying the Asean Transboundary Haze Treaty.

No one can agree more with the consul-general when he said talks and discussions alone would not solve the problem.

The time for such talks and discussions is long past. There is, one
assumes, already a comprehensive plan of action contained in the haze
treaty that Indonesia, as a leading member of Asean, is presumably
always party to.

Do the decent thing and sign on to the pact, Indonesia. And if there
are shortcomings (the consul-general alluded to quite a few: Shortage
of funds, law-enforcement constraints and a need to change Indonesians’
mindset) that prevent the country from implementing the treaty
Malaysians — driven to desperation by this annual scourge — will surely
be only too glad to jointly walk the talk with our neighbours from
across the border.