Indonesia, the region's largest and most vibrant democracy, is strong enough to keep its democracy in one piece despite ongoing political crisis in neighboring Thailand, says a visiting US diplomat.
"From the perspective of Indonesia, *the Thai political crisis* is happening at a time when Indonesia's democracy is strong," US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero said Thursday.
"*Indonesia* is able to develop its own capacity and *is* an open example to the rest of the region in which civil society is so familiar with freedom of expression," she said.
"I don't think I would say that Indonesian democracy would be threatened by what is going on in Thailand right now."
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa earlier said Indonesia had been worried by incidents in Thailand, saying they could bring "contagious effects" to the implementation of democracy in the other Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia.
Thai authorities restored order in Bangkok on Thursday. At least 82 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and nearly 1,800 others have been wounded since April 10.
In response to Otero's statement, University of Indonesia international relations expert Hariyadi Wirawan said that what Otero said was "to calm nerves in Indonesia".
"Democracy in Indonesia is almost the same as that of other democratic countries in Southeast Asia, but its dimension and social characters are different from that of Western countries, like America and in Europe," he said. "I don't buy her take on this."
A country with a "strong democracy", he said, would not tolerate violence, to which people tended to resort to when results of general or regional elections were not to their expectations - a common incident throughout Indonesia.
The soothing statement, Hariyadi said, should have been instead a condemnation by Washington of Thailand, which had always been the US' "golden child".
"When *human rights abuses or democracy failure* happens in Jakarta or Hanoi or Yangoon, Washington will be the first to make a statement condemning it," he said.
"But when so many civilians have been shot dead with bullets in the Thai political crisis, not a single condemnation has been issued by Washington or *US Secretary of State* Hillary Clinton."
