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New health minister to keep Namru-2 closed
Newly inaugurated Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said Friday she would follow in the steps of her predecessor by maintaining a suspension of the US Navy's Naval Medical Research Unit (Namru-2) laboratory in Jakarta
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ewly inaugurated Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said Friday she would follow in the steps of her predecessor by maintaining a suspension of the US Navy's Naval Medical Research Unit (Namru-2) laboratory in Jakarta.
Speaking after the first Cabinet meeting of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's second term in office, Endang said the Health Ministry's cooperation with the United States would only con-tinue under a civilian biomedical research lab called the Indonesia-United States Center for Medical Research (IUC).
"We had to close *Namru-2* because it was a military unit," said the Harvard-educated minister.
"But Indonesia's cooperation with the US will still go on and covers a wide range of areas, including in the operation of the bio-medical lab.
"The details of the cooperation will be set out later, but the point is it will be aimed at advancing our technology in the biomedical field."
Endang added among the things the IUC could probably work on were vaccines and diagnostic tools development, as well as virus and bacteria identification.
"I will look further into the matter because it will be part of the Health Ministry's 100-day program," she added.
Namru-2 began operating in Indonesia in 1970 as a joint research lab to study virus strings under a partnership between the US Navy and the Indonesian Health Ministry.
The lab is located in the ministry's research and development center.
In 2000, it was closed after its contract expired, but the Indonesian government under then-president Abdurrahman Wahid allowed it to continue operating under the signing of an MoU.
In 2005, it was closed once again only to start back up in 2006.
Last year, after the House of Re-presentatives demanded a review of the lab's scope of work, it was again closed down.
In recent years, the presence of the lab sparked controversy after the US government requested diplomatic immunity for the lab's US staff.
Indonesia insisted only the director and deputy director of the lab be granted diplomatic privileges, including diplomatic immunity, but the US sought diplomatic privileges to be extended to all Americans working at the lab.
The Health Ministry, under then-minister Siti Fadillah Supari, along with the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry have been the most vocal opponents of the lab.
Siti signed an MoU with the US government in Washington in September to replace Namru-2 with the civilian IUC lab.
- JP/Erwida Maulia
