---------------------------------------------------------- FREE for JOIN Indonesia Daily News Online via EMAIL: go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Dengan mengClick banner sponsor anda menyumbang Rp. 1000,- untuk HomePage IndoNews. ---------------------------------------------------------- KOLOM SUPANGKAT: BEN DRAJAT DESERVED WORLD'S CONDEMNATION: ADORING MASSACRES Getting too personal As a response to my writing about "The mystery behind Alatas change of heart", Ben Drajat from Hiroshima wrote a lot of nonsense: pretenses, contradictions, ignorance, even mendacity. He got too personal with me by vilifying me and insinuated with his cheap rhetoric to overcome my experiences as if null and void. I don't mind, even I feel great being criticized as I am a critic myself, but if you stoop down so low, I am very reluctant to dignify it with an answer. However, I have to put the problem on perspective. First he vilified me by saying that I am writing a myth. This is an insult as I am a journalist by trade, why didn't he just say that my writing is bad? I am a UN correspondent covering the event and he was commenting on my writing from Hirsoshima, out of the loop on what was going on in the United Nations Tripartite. Myth a mendacity He wrote: "I doubt all arguments regarding this myth" when he was commenting about Alatas change of heart from rejecting all kinds of voting systems to agreeing to direct balloting, that he was under titanic international pressure. John Aglion of the Guardian wrote on March 13, that UN pressures gives East Timor vote on independence". It was indeed Kofi Annan in particular who pressur- ed Alatas to agree at least to the democratic voting system. And Drajat wrote with such a conviction as if he was there with us during the negotiations. This is a mendacity. The charm of the devil? He wrote in the same paragraph that "Indonesia has it (not its) own charm in solv- ing his (instead of its) problems domestically (sic!) or internationally". Is he a total ignoramus about massacres in Java and Bali (between half a million to one million suspected communists), in East Timor at least 50% out of the alleged massacre of 200.000 to be fair, in Aceh between 10.000 and 20.000 and then even in Tanjung Priok and in Jakarta itself by the thousands. Ben Drajat is an ignoramus on the multiple and repeated massacres. and even worse: he adores it as a "charm", the devil's charm, therefore he de- served to get the world's condemnation unequivocably alongside Suharto! Loaded with pretense Then he wrote about diplomacy, as if he were a seasoned diplomat - where in fact I presumed he has never been even as an Attache, the lowest ranking diplo- mat - by writing: "Diplomacies and negotiations are full of surprises (sic!)". Who does he think he is? His statement is loaded with pretense. Insulting everybody He insulted Foreign Minister Jaime Gama by addressing him plainly without any reverence while calling "the honourable Alatas", etc in the same paragraph. So, he insulted me, he insulted Gama, he seems to have the habit of insulting everybody.. Referendum thesis without reference On referendum he "thesized" without reference that "referendum is not in any way identical with this particular balloting mechanism in acquiring the reply of the East Timorese people......" Accoring to the Encyclopaedia Brittanica (Macropeadia VII page 469), Referendum an initiative, electoral devices by which the wishes of the voters may be expressed with regard to governmental policy or proposed legislation. They exist in a variety of forms" Insulting oppressed people Even the Brittanica says that there is indeed a variety of forms of referendum. But our wise guy wrote: "This balloting or direct voting mechanism will be perhaps similar to polls or surveys conducted by TEMPO magazine for instance." Where is the substance or reference for this analogy? Is there an intellectual authority in such an axiom? What a pretender. Time and again he inflicts insult, this time to the East Timorese people who has to vote for their life for the first time in history after being colonized for almost 400 years by Portugal and then had to endured enequaled suppression under the merciless Suharto's military fascism which is condemned the world over. Diplomats: balloting = referendum He prejudged the direct balloting as different from referendum while Kofi Annan and Portugal acknowledged that this is not final, it has to be approved or ratified by Jakarta and to be represented back to the Tripartie on April 22 by Alatas. Jaime Gama said that "For us, it will be equal to a free and fair election in demo- ratic countries. It is a turning point". It is a mystery that Alatas change of heart occured in a flash at the last moment. AFP wrote that "Diplomats said the vote could be a referendum in all but name" (March 11, 1999). And according to the Guardian: "Most observers believe the wording is intended to allow Jakarta to save face". But Drajat wanted to be smarter (sic!) than the UN diplomats quoted by AFP and the Guardian, notably without presenting a single substance or reference while he was absent from the proceedings as well. Given Indonesian duplicity in the past, Portuguese PM Guteres said that "finally Indonesia acknowledged the principle of self-determination" after a struggle by the resistance while calling the agreement "a great moment which we salute while applying great caution: the caution of those all too well aware of the most difficult task remain ahead......." President Sampaio welcomed the decision but "the danger exists of creating a void" meaning possible tricks to be pulled out of Indonesia's sleeves as usual mentioned in my article as "surprises" for backtracking and fillibustering. Teaching undiplomacy I have never been taken by surprise, I predicted what was going to happen but a surprise is a surprise and had to be reported as such, even a muted one. Drajat failed to read my previous articles, he is out of context but tried to "teach" me a lesson in diplomacy. He is like a midget trying to impress every- body the bodybuilding to be a big man, teaching diplomacy with undiplomacy. The braggart committed harakiri The kid bragged of being fresh and young living in the city of peace, Hiroshima. He is indeed fresh in the American sense of the word meaning: green, brazen, wise guy, naive. He committed cybernet harakiri by demonstrating his fatal mistakes and his adoring massaccres to the whole world. I feel sorry for him that I had to take him apart like a clock. He offered him- self voluntarily, it is not my fault. H.S. Hidayat Supangkat The United Nations. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 15 Mar 1999 jam 12:56:50 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
