---------------------------------------------------------- The US government makes available 55.000 GREEN CARDS (permanent residence visa) in a random lottery. Visit http://www.us-immigration.org for details on how to play the GREEN CARD LOTTERY -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 Indonesia Daily News Online http://www.indo-news.com/ Free Email @KotakPos.com visit: http://my.kotakpos.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------- The Australian Financial Review Thursday, August 9 2000 Australia called on to act By Peter Hartcher Australia is failing to properly support Indonesia's efforts at democracy at a critical moment because of "really unfortunate" domestic politics, a senior US expert has said. A former US ambassador to Jakarta and putative top official in a George W. Bush administration, Mr Paul Wolfowitz, said that Australia had developed some hard feelings towards Indonesia, but that "the stakes are too high to be run by hard feelings". It was ironic, he said, that Australia had better relations with Indonesia as a dictatorship than it has with Indonesia as a democracy. The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, should visit Jakarta as a matter of priority: "I'm told there is a hang-up over who visits who first. You should not get hung up on those issues. "Now is the the time to cut Indonesia a lot of slack. They are dealing with very big problems and we should look out for ways we can help," he told The Australian Financial Review. In a sharp critique of US and Australian policy on Indonesia, Mr Wolfowitz said that the two were missing "an extraordinary opportunity" to help cement the world's biggest Muslim country as a democracy. "This would be the first chance for an Australian prime minister to meet a functioning Indonesian parliament, and now with a free press it would be a chance to address Indonesia as a whole." He said that a successful Indonesian transition to democracy would not only be a valuable example to Muslim countries around the world, "as the biggest democracy in East Asia it would also be a none-too-subtle influence on China". Mr Wolfowitz is the dean of the school of advanced international studies at Johns Hopkins University, a former US assistant secretary of State, and a former undersecretary of defence. He is part of the inner circle of Mr Bush, the Republican presidential candidate. The Washington Post speculated this month that he would be the head of the CIA in a Bush administration. He has also been touted as a possible defence secretary. His critique comes as Indonesia's first freely elected president, Abdurrahman Wahid, manoeuvres to fend off his critics in the Peoples' Consultative Assembly, and to hold the restive provinces within the republic. Mr Wolfowitz said that the peace and stability of the entire region was at stake: "There is a real danger Indonesia will start to fragment. It occupies such a huge and strategic position I think that, unfortunately, you will see big and small powers scrapping over the pieces. "I am not predicting it's going to be another Yugoslavia - but then again I don't know anyone who predicted Yugoslavia three years before it went bad." Australia, like the US, needed to see Indonesia beyond the issue of East Timor. "In some respects the tail of East Timor policy has been allowed to wag the dog of policy on Indonesia," he said. "You finally have a Government in Indonesia trying to do the right thing by democratic values, yet it seems to be harder than ever for Australia to subordinate East Timor to the larger relationship." He said that the US failed to grasp the importance of Indonesia and put far more effort into assisting Russia. "The Clinton Administration still operates with a Cold War mindset with US-Soviet arms control as the centrepiece of global security. "The US is putting a lot more time and effort into the case of Russia", and its democratic transition, he said. "And in the US, there's also a lack of interest in anything that doesn't have star-quality appeal." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 14 Aug 2000 jam 06:44:09 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
