On diplomacy

I refer to the letter from Roger Anthony Smith titled Elitist diplomacy published in The Jakarta Post on March 31.

As the person responsible for the ""One on One (1-on-1)"" talk show series offered by InterMatrix Communications each month at selected hotel venues, I must apologize to our recent guest, Australian Ambassador David Ritchie, for being incorrectly associated with the admission charge to our program.

We are a professional company engaged in bringing together opinion makers and audiences at appropriate venues. To assure the independence of our program we expect these events to be self-funding and avoid sponsorship, which might compromise the discussion.

The cost of food and the venue for each event is approximately Rp 17 million per event. Business people are expected to make a Rp 1 million contribution. Public officials, including diplomats and government people, are exempt from the charge. Students and scholars are welcome to ask for free admission.

This way we have been able to collect a modest amount to defray expenses, although normally we collect less than one third of the total cost.

Being our guest, the Australian ambassador has absolutely no role in the admission policy. We are fully aware that the Australian Embassy has an extensive program of outreach through various means. They have been quite successful in explaining their position on key issues to the Indonesian public.

We believe that ""One-on-one"" is only one among many communications activities in which the embassy is engaged. Hence, we are very happy that InterMatrix, as a private company, is included in their program, with reduced financial strain. It motivates us to continue this public service program which competes for the time of busy executives and public officials.

We share Smith's admiration for former British Ambassador Richard Gozney with whom InterMatrix enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect. In fact, the initial event of ""One on One"" featured Ambassador Gozney in arrangements identical to those for Ambassador Ritchie. Our guest next month will be Ambassador Ralph Boyce of the United States. We are indeed grateful to these distinguished speakers for accepting our format. We express sincere apologies for any embarrassment which may have arisen.

WIMAR WITOELAR One-on-one Talk Show InterMatrix Communications Jakarta