Dewi Fortuna Anwar - Adviser to the Indonesian Vice President HARDtalk

involved and people were injured. Now BBC News, it's time for

HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. Indonesia is the dominant power in

Southeast Asia, the fourth most populous nation in the world and

Nicky player in the 21st century shift of global power from west to

east. But how stable are Indonesia 's economic and political foe of ``

foundations. It has hit tensions. Corruption remains a drag on

development. Our guest is a senior adviser to Indonesia 's vice

president. Will Indonesia fulfil its potential?

Welcome to HARDtalk. Why do you think it is that the world seems to

be losing confidence in Indonesia is economic story? I think we hit a bit

of turbulence. We actually managed to navigate through the crisis in

2008 particular in the financial institutions that had been put in

place at the 1997 crisis. They still stand to this day. We managed to do

very well with expectations of continuing growth despite the fact

the rest of the world was not doing so well. With the continuing global

crisis and the fact that Indonesia 's economy is still very much

dependent on exports and private commodities, commodities are very

stable, we have problems with our revenues and exports. It seems that

there were some complacency. An overreliance on commodity. We have

seen the stock market go down by 20%. And you see your currency at a

real lowered again the US dollar. It comes down to the US ``

international community wondering whether the success of the last few

years can be set range. Maybe there have been some, you know, pick up

the new past few weeks. The government has got its act together.

It has stabilised. The rating agency the couple years ago were crowing

how comfortable they were... They were very worried about deficit.

They were. They are still. I think the government has seized on these

problems. The Genesis problem is being addressed. Every time someone

talks about the Indonesian economy infrastructure issues. Most ``

investors have zeroed in on. I hope that in the next one to two years

ports, roads and various major infrastructure problems are the

pipeline. Institutional problems, the redtape issues, other certain

issues, these are issues we are addressing. We'll go through a lot

of that. Your specialism is in international relations and

politics. And therefore you must be concerned when, for example, the

Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal have highlighted the

difficulties of Oracle needs who have tried to in Indonesia, thinking

of mining companies and who find there is increasingly strident

nationalism that make it difficult for them to expand their businesses.

I would like to underline that Indonesia has been very open. It is

very outward looking. We are much more open to many other countries.

If you work for Churchill mining and you think that you have got a

licence to mind going to dolls with: Indonesia, as they thought

they have, and you suddenly find that the local government has

withdrawn the... It is a problem. We are trying to address it. As you

know very well, Indonesia went from one centralised countries to become

one of the most decentralised. At that time that water demand. One of

these problems in these uncertain regulations, where investors

sometimes complained that there were too many deaths and there were not

sure if you went to that central investment board it would be

honoured by the government. At the moment we are trying to revise some

of these bills to make sure that all of this confusion could be buying

now, these are some of the problems we are trying to address. Do you

worry that having seen the economy grow do you worry that's deal more

than 30 million Indonesians live on a dollar a day? Live in dire

poverty. The trade unions are so dissatisfied with the lot of the

Indonesian worker that they have called for a national strikes. We

are all very worried about this. For Indonesia, poverty is not just about

having poor people. This is also related to social stability. You

have seen what happened in 1997 and 1998 when the economy plunged and

what happened was a social upheaval. Indonesia does not want to return to

that kind of difficult history again. At the moment the government

is trying massive measures to accept that, giving food stamps and giving

cheaper rice, social insurance. We are going to introduce national

healthcare. We are trying to introduce measures to address the

poorest of the poor. He administration you advice have had

to terms in office and yet still union representatives day that

workers cannot afford their rent, they have to move from their homes

and living under bridges and sewers. Was a quote. Union leaders, if you

look at them, unions have become very empowered in the past 15 years

since we have come in. And they have managed to negotiate price, salary

increases over and over again. Now they are demanding much higher wages

and there are some justifications or that demand. But at the same time,

businesses are also facing problems. Demand`side declining. Unions also

need to pay attention to whether businesses are in a position to give

them the salaries they are demanding. Now the government and

businesses need to work together and at the time, unions can go on

strike. They have the freedom of organisation. A saying in the future

that would be curtailed? No, we will continue to respect that. We will

curtail any of our democratic expressions. But I would like to

call on the unions to be much more sensible. Do not kill the goose that

lays the golden eggs. Their response might be this `` but what you have

failed to do as the government over the last decade is actually take

seriously the ASIC needs of the people. We have seen the top of

Indonesian society become very wealthy. There are extraordinary

numbers of prosperous people inside Jakarta and the top of the economy

but there are also many people who live with the reality as the World

Bank says, in aqua that `` in adequate sanitation across the

country which cost two to 3% of GDP every year through the impact of

illness on communities. That is the problem. Indonesia has not leveraged

its economic growth in the right way and the right areas for the mass of

the people. That is not correct. If you have seen the decline, the real

decline in poverty, there have been decreased from 40% to 23%. You would

wish that the poverty alleviation could work harder and can deliver

better results but the fact of the matter is the level of economic

develop and that we have after the crisis has not been sufficiently

high to absorb the kind of labour demands that we have. It has not

really given the various demands and infrastructures. There are 240

million people and there are so many challenges. We really need to

balance the need for constant growth, constant high growth with

equity. Clearly, we have to wonder address `` address the state of the

union. You cannot have equity if corruption is endemic through the

public and private sectors. Your government has failed to read the

curse of corruption. The government is very serious in addressing this

issue. We are very proud of the fact that our anticorruption commission

is one of the most powerful agent in the country. It was the terror and

fear in all government and parliament. We can talk about the

numbers are up and that have been convicted of corruption in the

Parliament and police and across the public sector. But that suggests

that the fear is not there because people are still on the take, still

taking bribes and the rest of it. The fear factor is not there. I

would disagree with you. The fear is already there. 88% of Indonesians

stay say that corruption is widespread in the government. I was

a corruption is endemic in government. But it has only been 15

years. We have 15 years of the new government but nobody actually would

dare to expose any other corrupt officials. Within the past 15 years

we have tried to address these issues. If people are talking about

corruption, the fact that they are being arrested, new scales are being

exposed, we feel that these issues are being exposed. They sure are

being exposed every day. There was a huge scandal over the rest by the

corruption eradication commission of the chief justice of the

Constitutional commission. I was there. Here is the thing. He has

been now charged with money laundering charges, he seems,

according to the allegations, to have taken money from local

politicians an local democratic fights. How, if these charges are

now being pursued through the courts, can the Indonesian public

have confidence in the next round of elections? And their ability to

appeal if they see wrongdoing in the next round of elections? This

Constitutional Court is a very new Court. It is supposed to be the

shining light. Hopefully the government has taken a quick measure

and they have introduced a new law that would improve the recruitment

process. Was an oversight that of the Constitutional Court. We do not

want to prejudge court decision. The fact of the matter is the decisions

of the court on the local elections are binding and final. It is very

very important that we need to restore probity to this report.

Otherwise it will jeopardise the whole credibility of the elections

and I think we are all very aware of this. Nobody in Indonesia wants to

go back to the Dark Age of military rule. With the democratic process is

being undermined, and people no longer trust elections, this is

going to be very dangerous. We all very aware of this. An individual we

are talking about now faces charges, he continues to deny those

charges, but the taint which has been put upon the system in the eyes

of the public is very real. And I want to know if you believe that the

next round of elections in your country are going to be seen either

public as credible? The people would make sure that the current people

sitting in the Constitutional Court would be fully full of integrity.

That would ensure that there would be that oversight of the

Constitutional Court. You say, we are a bit naive, why is it that

after so long in power, and so many promises about rooting out power,

that he has failed so miserably? A lesson is learnt for us. Maybe we

should not have allowed politicians to apply in the Constitutional

Court. Maybe this is the case, and in fact, under the new regulations,

you have to be out of politics for seven years before you are allowed

to stand for the Constitutional Court. So a depoliticise

Constitutional Court? Yes. That is what we want. Howdy you take deep

religious tensions out of Indonesian society as well? One should not

exaggerate. There are regions that have been torn apart, where the

Christian and Muslim conflicts happened, and at that time we have

two address the deep seated problems. Indonesians have always

been brought up with Paul Araki, being Muslims and Christians and

Hindus and was as, it has just been part of our culture. But they do

flareup during the early transitional period, and most of

them was related to issues that were not dealt with. Whenever there were

problems, they were not addressed properly, and we found that a lot of

the complex were not related to religious differences, it is not

primary issues, most of them were competition for resources, shifts in

power and so on. So, if we're talking the question, Muslims `` the

question Muslim conflict, we can't focus on that. You have a Minister

of foreign affairs who has expressed his own opinions about the Muslim

community is, in some ways suggesting that they are her

radical. I can assure you that that is not the position of the

Indonesian government, or the position of... Why do you have a

religious affairs Minister who keeps staring at these issues? That is

something we have to ask the religious minister. Don't you had to

ask your boss, the vice president, and his boss, the President, why

they could continue to see him in his office? On a Mac the fact of the

matter, at the moment, with the President's Cabinet, it is still a

minority government. It is still comprising different political

parties. The minister is the chair of an Islamic party, and probably

represents a view of that particular party, but I'm happy to say that

that he was not shared by the whole of Indonesia. No, but you won't be

happy to see that the UN High Commissioner of human rights, when

she visited Jakarta less than a year ago, talked about increasing levels

of violence and hatred towards minorities, and the narrow extremist

interpretation of Islam that was gaining ground in the country. Were

all very concerned about this, because very existence of Indonesia

is dependent on our poll Araki. Unity and diversity. If there is

intolerance, it would break up our social harmony. The government is

now, as a whole, part of the problem is now not so much the existence of

the radical groups. In any society, in Britain as well, there is

extremist groups. It is about rule of law. People expressing different

views, that is just part of our freedom of expression. ``

words like harmony, and rule of law, all of those are called into

question by perhaps the biggest specific challenge of those are

called into question by perhaps the biggest specific challengeable

facing your government, and that is the story of west Papua, and the

fact that there is a fundamental stain on the human rights record of

Indonesia in Westpac were. Would you acknowledge that? Under the new

order period the over in sepsis on security, and the ability to

maintain that, is very real. Imposing rule on a population that

is fewer than 3 million, there is still security forces in west

Papua? You know very well, Indonesia has a territorial defence distant,

selling it province we have tens of thousands of soldiers. That these

soldiers are not defending Indonesia, they are repressing the

people of west Papua. That is not true either. If there is the

perception that there are soldiers in Papua but not in the other parts

of Indonesia, that is not true. The military is based in each and every

province. Is it not time for some truth and reconciliation here? Is it

not time for you and the government to acknowledge that as the

University of Sydney's report back in 2005 suggested, more than 100,000

native people in west Papua have been killed in what has been decades

of, in effect, occupation? That is very wrong, to say that West Papua

has been occupied. It has always been part of Indonesia. It is very

irresponsible usage of the word occupation. I don't think London

occupies Scotland or Wales. Papua has always been an integral part of

Indonesia, because Papua was part of the Dutch East Indies. Because the

Dutch left, that did not change this aspect. We admit the fact that

Papua, because of its geography, because of its very widespread

territory and difficulties in logistics, there are pockets of

areas that are not easily accessible. These have been problems

of development. The past 15 years, the Indonesian government has tried

very hard to reorient its policy to become much more human rights

oriented, much more prosperity are entered. I just want to be clear

about a couple of things. Number one, to you except that tens of

thousands of people in that territory have died in the 50 years

that Indonesia has exercised authority over at? No, I don't

accept that. Because I have never really seen the figures being

presented in Indonesia, really seen the figures being

you hear men who have been required to leave, political excise, when he

says, they look at us as a colony, they do whatever they like, that is

why I say to the world that in 20 or 30 years time my people will have

disappeared, what do you say to him? I think he should return to

Indonesia and face the law that... People are imprisoned for raising a

flag in Papua. Another gentleman, Philip, who is serving 50 years

because he was... It Papua and are going to disappear, the population

will decline, the fact remains that the Papua and population has

actually gone up. There are some 4 million Papua and is now, so they

are not disappearing, they are actually increasing. That is because

of better health service, better education that we try to deliver. We

are still lagging behind because of the difficulties in logistics,

building roads, providing healthcare to the remote districts are real

struggle. Since two years ago, under the vice president, Yudhoyono, we

are developing west Papua. Do you think it has fundamentally harmed

Indonesia's reputation? I would agree. Indonesia should try to do a

better job of informing the international community what it is

doing. Thank you very much for being on HARDtalk.

The unsettled theme is set to continue for the rest of the week,

and also into the weekend. All our weather has been coming in off the

Atlantic, with streams of cloud pushing our way in across the

British ours bringing outbreaks of rain. That is what we will see

through the course of this morning, outbreaks of rain pushing towards

Wales and the south`west of England. Ahead of it, some dry, colder

weather, through the course of this morning, particularly for north`east

Scotland. Frosty, with blustery showers blowing in in the morning,

and that rain