I.POLITICAL AND SECURITY MATTERS
1. ARF 2008 in Singapore
Participation of Indonesia in many regional organizations would be utilized in order to maintain the Indonesian national interest. Political communication will be enhanced in order the people’ interest reflecting Indonesia participation in such regional and sub regional organization and in exchange to the benefit of the organization concerned for the sake in attaining the necessity of Indonesia.
Hence, Indonesia will utilize to its participation at ASEAN Regional Forum to maintain the sovereign and integrity of the Unitary State of The Republic of Indonesia, particularly through increasing proactive action in maintaining the stability and security of Asia Pacific regions at the forum.
2. Review on The Political and Security Situation in the Asia Pasific Region and in the world.
3. Peace and Stability in North Asia
As a peace loving country, Indonesia is opposed any kind of nuclear weapon’s tests and their means of delivery because it violates the Non Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Band Treaty ( CTBT ). Against these background, Indonesia fully supports “the Second Phase of Action for The Implementation of The Joint Statement “ signed by the six parties on October 3, 2007, which aimed at the denuclearization of the North Korea. To achieve this goal, the six Parties and others involved in the North Korean nuclear issue, should build closer international cooperation amongst them.
In addition, the Indonesian government always break through any development and protection of Human Rights in North Korea and request its government to pay attention in international community concerned in relation with the kidnapping foreigners. Therefore Indonesia always push out all parties concerned to accelerate their commitment that has reached as according to the deciding schedules.
4. Peace and Stability in Southeast Asia
a. South Thailand matters
Indonesia considers South Thailand matters as its internal affairs, so that international communities should honor and let Thailand overcome their problems.
b. Border crossing matters between Thai – Cambodia
Indonesia considers that border crossing problems should be solved through bilateral relation and peace approach under the Joint Border Commission and by the Spirit of ASEAN solidarity such as Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.
c. South Philippines Problems
Indonesia wishes to witness the peace and security situation in Southeast Asia and furthermore become the foundation to promote the creation of ASEAN community.
d. Current Political Development in Myanmar
For Indonesia, this Myanmar issue will be focused into three ( 3 ) prospective namely domestic, regional ( ASEAN ) and international which each of them is interrelated. In the context of domestic issue, the current situation in Myanmar is not only have a tendency to democracy crisis and Human Rights issues but also as implication of complex situation which is effecting to poverty crisis, national resilience and conflict among ethnics as well as disintegration threatening.
The solution for Myanmar issues is expedited by Indonesia not only in the framework of bilateral relationship with Myanmar but also in the context of regional / international. Indonesia, along with India, China and other ASEAN countries , through using such as constructive engagement’s approach in this case of Myanmar.
5. Middle East Process
Entering the new year of 2009, Indonesia have still witnessed that the complex situation in the Middle East remains to be an impediment towards the peace process. Indonesia diplomacy and humanitarian aid help Palestinians in their struggle for a separate state and to hold the ongoing Israeli military offensive in Gaza stripes.
Indonesian government issued a statement sent to UN calling on “ Israeli to immediately and its arbitrary use of force which contravenes international law, including the Geneve Convention.”
Therefore Indonesia calls for an immediate end to the grand operation, and asks Israel to do all possible to ensure the protection of civilians and that humanitarians assistance is able to reach those in need. Therefore further Indonesia condemns the Israeli aggression to the Gaza stripes.
Furthermore, Indonesia urges Palestina and Israeli to continuously develop direct and immediate negotiations to solve the existing core issues between the two parties, mediated by the quarter and the international community.
In this regard, Indonesia believes that unity and strong brotherhood of the Palestinians is fundamental to materialize as independent, sovereign State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. Therefore, internal dialogue and negotiation between conflicting parties should be promoted towards national reconciliation.
To this end due to the recent aggression of the Israeli to Gaza Strips of Palestine, the Indonesian Senate of the Republic of Indonesia declared as follows :
In monitoring current situation in Middle East, particularly in Palestine, the Indonesian Senate viewed that :
1. the Israeli’s aggression was human criminal and therefore as evidence to an arrogancy and cruelty of Israeli and his allies.
2. Ignorance of some Middle East countries concerning of genocide.
3. The United Nations is malfunction in maintain sovereign of states and world peace from human criminal in Gaza Strips.
To this end, the Indonesian Senate strongly condemned the aggression of Isreaeli into Palestine and therefore declares as follows :
1. To appeal the government to :
a. Take diplomatic and other steps that urge the cease of the Israel aggression in Palestine either
in short or long term.
b. To enhance the humanitarian aid and deliver the Peace Keeping Corps in Palestine.
2. To appeal the UN to :
a. To stop the Israeli aggression by sending the Peace Corps to Palestine.
b. To ensure the sovereign of the Palestine country and urges Israel to exiles from the
Palestine region.
c. If point a and b cannot be executed, Indonesia must encourage all the peace loving countries to
urgently reformed the UN.
3. To further appeal the countries in the Middle East regions in order to accelerate regional
consolidation to be deliberately proactive involving in the cease of Israeli aggression in
Palestine.
4. To invite the government ( regional and central ) and all communities concerned to accommodate humanitarian support for the victims of Israeli aggression in Palestine.
5. To further appeal the International high Court to bring into court of those who involved in the said crime and give their evidence of responsibility on the case of Palestine aggression.
6. Cluster Munitions
Cluster munitions are the kind of explosive or sub-munitions with round size as an orange or soft drink that can be attracting to children but its explosion capacity maybe totally damaging a run way of airplanes, tanks or even army troops. Therefore the Secretary General of UN mentioned that “ the atrocious, in human efforts to these weapons should be seriously taken care of”. Hence the campaign of this anti weapon would be supported by all civilians in the world. The forbidden issue of this weapon always appears in every agenda topic of Convention of certain Convention Weapons in Geneve last November 2006. Nevertheless, Indonesia is not a part of this convention. Discussion on this cluster weapon failed to reach a success due to resistance coming from some countries such as USA, UK, The Federation of Russia and China.
7. Terrorism : refer to APEC point II 1 e.
II. ECONOMIC AND TRADE MATTERS
1. APEC 2008 in PERU
The result of APEC 2008 from 22 – 23 Nov 2008 with its theme “ A New Commitment to the Asia Pasific Development” has reached the so called APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting Declaration” consists of important issues namely :
a) Global economic situation and WTO Doha Development Agenda negotiations.
b) Promoting Food and Energy Securities.
c) Advancing Regional Integration and proposals for the development of the regional community.
d) Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR )
e) Human securities including counter of Terrorism and Emergency Preparedness, Anti Corruption and Transparency.
In terrorism issue, all leaders emphasize on the APEC commitment relating to the trade in order to enhance welfare and sustainable development in Asia Pacific Regions from any other natural disaster and welcome to joint initiative Australia – Indonesia Facility on Disaster Reduction.
f) Anti corruption Declaration on the Financial Markets.
2. WTO 2008
In general, Indonesia still supports the initiative for continuing Doha Round Meeting. The failure of the Ministerial Level Meeting in July 2008 was a moment for Indonesia to review study in details through the opportunity based on the principle to be defended against further meeting. Indonesia has to review her position maximally regaring her point of view that the international trade is the source of financial development followed could reduce poverty. So that Indonesia can be more proactive in the next Doha Round Development Meeting and therefore such development becomes an important goal.
Part of Indonesia’s strategies are to actively participate at every group such as G -33, Cairo Group, New G – 6 and NAMA ( Non Agricultural Market Access)- 11 reflecting in WTO as the forum to discuss international trade issues for the benefit of Indonesia.
3. Sustainable Tourism.
In Indonesia Development Guidelines 1999, tourism in Indonesia has to be developed through an integrated system, interdisciplinary, participatory approach, using economical and technical criteria, ergonomic, sosio cultural sensitivity, energy saving, nature conservation and minimizing the environmental impact. The old tourism development approach has been changed to increase the welfare of local people participating in tourism.
Based on the fact that opportunity to develop ecotourism as a strategy to build sustainable tourism is huge.
Indonesia considers that ecotourism is a comprehensive tool to conserve biodiversity and to involve local communities and organization in a participatory way to drive maximum benefit in a sustainable way. Ecotourism has a potential to improve the quality of the environment, cultural values, local community prosperity, and the quality of human relations in general.
All the abovementioned hope in regard with sustainable tourism would become reality if the following activities can be focused, accelerated and arrange as :
a. Research and Planning
Actively conducting research to find a simple solution in creating models of ecotourism development.
b. Capacity Building
Improving technical capacity is one of the key of success factors in achieving sustainable tourism management. Empowerment not only be enhanced as local community levelbut more importantly at the level of tourism developers, managers and decision makers. It’s also necessary to build the capacity of ecotourism planning and management by facilitating information access,providing human resources development through training and provide opportunity for internship.
c. Destination Development
Facilitating regional and local partners to develop their areas to become ecotourism destination development becomes a priority. The role of destination development creates a model of ecotourism development which is appropriate for and can accommodate nature conservation, cultural heritage and community participation.
Some example in the development of community based ecotourism in Togean islands, central Sulawesi, Conservation Education based ecotourism in Gunung Halimun National Park, West Java, Ecotourism Development in Betung Kerihun National Park in West Kalimantan, Community based Ecotourism Development in Menoreh and Borobudur, Magelang district – Central Java, Wakatobi, Island for ocean tourism in south east Sulawesi, and West Bali National Park.
d. Marketing
Taking the opportunity to promote ecotourism products, in the form of books, newsletters, policy papers and ecotourism packages. As marketing is one of the biggest obstacles in community based ecotourism development in Indonesia. It needs a coordinating market efforts and supported marketing through its international networking.
e. Monitoring and Evaluation
To guarantee visitors satisfaction, local economic growth, natural resources protection, positive cultural exchange, heritage preservation and community involvement in ecotourism. It needs to develop guidelines to monitoring and evaluation for ecotourism destinations as part of its responsibility to minimize negative impact. For example, monitoring system in Bodogol Conservation Education Center in Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, implementing environmental programs in number of hotels in Bali under Bali Focus and supported by Center for Environmental Leadership in Business Conservation International.
4. Food Security
The rising price of the main food supplies has a direct impact on the food sustainability, not only to the importer but also to the producer countries. The rising price of food supply will cause the availability of food supply substantially decrease and purchasing power of the low income societies become very low.
The increasing price of food supplies lately will also be triggered by something in dilemma, there is the arising attention towards climate change leading to bio-energy development. In this case, Indonesia has the capability to maintain the balance of the national food demand and supply, in order to stabilize the national food pricing.
For Indonesia, the main priority is not to decrease the price, but more into stabilizing the food pricing to make it affordable for the low income society. Rational price will be an opportunity, incentive and also a trigger for the farmers to increase the food productivity.
Indonesia considers that farming policy, either at the national or international level should be reorganized. The farming sustainability should be replaced as the center of the national development strategy.
5. Energy Security
The energy crisis faced by a number of countries in the world including Indonesia has caused various socio economy impact especially due to the budget burden bearing the subsidy, either the direct fuel subsidy ( domestic and transportation sectors ) or electricity subsidy due to the dependency to fossil energy at the most of electricity reactors.
Indonesia has very big potential renewable energy. The Indonesia’s geographical and natural resources has made several regions capable in developing renewable energy either in small or bigger scales.
Referring to the unique position of Indonesia as both the energy producer and consumer, in this energy security, Indonesia stresses on the importance of the energy security of supply and continuing flow of supply. For this reason, the increasing oil price occurred lately became the right momentum to develop the renewable energy.
Indonesia considers the importance of energy diversification through the development of renewable energy as a strategic movement in order to maintain the energy supply security. In this case, Indonesia strives to implement the energy mix strategy through increasing the portion of the new energy usage followed by target and certain time period.
III. INTER PARLIAMENTARY COOPERATION MATTERS
1. Legislation
2. Parliamentary Capacity Building
3. Natural Disaster Management
Natural disaster is one of the pressing issues in our region. It inflicts enormous losses in human lives and catastrophic repercussion on economy. No countries is immune to natural disasters, and no single country can cope with disasters by itself. In addition of preparedness, disasters and emergency responses are trans –boundary in nature. This high level of interdependence should therefore be addressed accordingly through collective measures. Every major disasters requires the immediate emergency responses.
The high potency of natural disasters is basically not more than the natural phenomenon that geographically specific for our country. Indonesia is an archipelago where the three largest plates of world meet, there are Indo- Australia plate, Eurasia plate, and Pasific plate. The interaction between these plates will further place Indonesia as the region which has a high activity of volcanoes and earthquakes.
At this point, Indonesia is considered as a potential disaster region. So the understanding and sustainable early disaster management should be developed, in order to enable us loving side by side in harmony with it.
One of the strategies to reduce the loss due to disaster occurrence possibility is by implementing a routine and sustainable mitigation. Mitigation will be more precise and accurate through the risk evaluation approach. Proactive approach to reduce the risk of disasters becomes one of the most important issues of mitigation activities, thatin the end every society is able to adapt with the potential risk of disasters.
There’s the urgency for Indonesia to expedite the birth process of The Disaster Management Act. We monitor that there are many parties that have given input and even assist us in developing the draft of the Bill to the House of Representatives.
Also, the disaster management guidance have been scattered in various international instruments such as Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian / Disaster Relief sponsored by the Red Cross Federation and Red Crescent International and several international NGOs concerning in humanitarian aids.
Beside this, simultaneously, legislatives and executives can ratify the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Therefore, many victims of conflicts and aftermaths in Indonesia often exile and deserted in another country.
Another urgent matter is taking care of the IDPs ( Internally Displaced Persons ) that is outside of the jurisdiction of the 1951 Refugees Convention that only mentions about the inter- country refuge. This IDP issue should be integrated with the Disaster Management Act or a new Act should be developed. The reference will lead to The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement produced by Office for Coordinating of humanitarian Agencies ( OCHA ) of the United Nations in 1998.
4. Poverty Reduction
Indonesia national development process refers to the Millenium Declaration 2000 aims to increase the level of human quality of life in year 2015, especially through global poverty reduction program. The ultimate challenge faced in order to alleviate poverty is the challenge in achieving the reduction target in half of the world poverty society. According to MDGs Report in 2006, total population earn less than USD 1 is 19% from the world population. Comparing to previous years, the number of the poverty societies have been decreased, but total population with extreme poverty has been increased up to 140 millions.
In national level, the government should empower and develop SME (Small Medium Enterprises ) in order to alleviate poverty especially through micro credit financing. In this case, Indonesia should put effort on increasing her role and participation of the developing countries effectively in the decision making in international finance especially in the FID frame. International aid channelled to developing countries for carrying development, is manifested in the form of ODA, elimination or reduction of foreign debt, and increasing capacity. It’s also given through the increasing access towards international money market.
Indonesia should also encourage the donor countries, financial institutions and also the UN so that debt swap for MDGs and debt to equity swap can be accepted widely.
5. Gender Issues in Parliament
As stated by Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, the role of women in decision making was central to the advancement of women around the world. As women are effected as any man by the challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, it is therefore, right and indeed, necessary that women should be engaged in decision
Therefore, Indonesia should promote processes to further confine women to play more active role in all aspects of our life, ultimately in state hood and in governance. Attention should be given on how to address women’s under representation in national government around the world, and particularly in the Asia Pacific. Furthermore, we should also promote woman empowerment through adequate and equal access to good education, capacity building and cooperation. Exchange of best practices among our nation is one sure way to achieve it.
Efforts at national levels should be undertake, which includes campaign to increase awareness, policy reforms, improved legislative frameworks and institution development, establishment of national policies an of women strategies for gender equality and regional instruments for the protection of the human right (attached by its paper issued by IPU)
IV. APPF MATTERS
1. APPF Membership
2. APPF Observer Status
3. APPF Rules of Procedures
4. Date and venue of APPF’S18th Annual Meeting
5. Others
