Letter: Namru-2 agreement

Thu, 05/08/2008 11:03 AM  |  Reader's Forum

The Jakarta Post April 28 editorial titled "Namru-2 for who" is worth commenting on. It briefly discusses the Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 (Namru-2)'s role since its establishment in the 1970s, notably to study potential diseases affecting U.S. military personnel in tropical countries.

This might be partly true if Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari was eying the election year because she represents a political party in the Cabinet.

But what has really become annoying for Siti and maybe to many Indonesians is the fact that this country suffers more than others from bird flu (H5N1) virus, so far claiming 108 victims, while the laboratory is only in her "backyard".

Meanwhile, most of some 150 Indonesians working in this lab only hold less than full university degrees or D3 degrees. Their jobs are only waiting for orders from the 19 U.S. researchers.

The absence of Indonesian full university graduate researchers in the lab shows that there are very few benefits to the country. For example, the lab could contribute to fighting dengue fever, hepatitis E and malaria, all of which are spreading. For malaria, there were 2 million cases in 2006, and the cases only dropped to 1.75 million in 2007. This means that we are the second class party in the Namru-2 agreement so far, as we are in other bilateral agreements.

It has been public knowledge that Indonesia is the second class party in bilateral agreements with Freeport, the world's largest gold and copper mine, in Timika Papua, the Newmont West Nusa Tenggara gold mine, Mexican Cemex in the cement industry and in telecommunications with a Singaporean company.

In order to avoid always falling into second class status in the future, it makes sense that as a sovereign nation, Indonesia needs to be an equal partner in any form of agreement.

Moreover, the 100th anniversary of National Awakening Day is approaching, which should awaken our spirit of equality among nations.

As for the extension of the Namru-2 cooperation, it is now timely to consider that the highest benefit should be for the people of Indonesia. There should be, for instance, Navy doctors in the lab who are capable of conducting research on viruses, as requested by Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono.

The diplomatic immunity that U.S. lab staff has enjoyed should be reviewed, as it arouses suspicion.

M. RUSDI
Jakarta

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