President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo last week met Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, during which they oversaw the signing of agreements to realign the Flight Information Region (FIR), revise the extradition treaty and renew a commitment to fulfill an existing defense cooperation agreement (DCA), all of which have yet to be ratified by the House.

During the meeting, Indonesia and Singapore also exchanged letters that would lock in the three major deals to come into force simultaneously, putting pressure on Indonesian lawmakers to ratify all the agreements at once.

The ratification at the House will likely be led either by Commission I overseeing defense and foreign policy or Commission III overseeing legal affairs and security, or cross-commission by forming a special team. This will be decided after the President sends a letter to the House leadership asking for the deals to be ratified.

Commission III member Arsul Sani said that while lawmakers welcomed the extradition treaty, which they deemed beneficial for Indonesia, especially in repatriating corrupt individuals who have fled or are trying to conceal ill-gotten assets, the House was still waiting for the government's detailed explanation of the FIR and DCA deals.

“The extradition treaty is needed so the benefits can be predicted. But the House still needs further explanation on the FIR and DCA,” Arsul of the United Development Party (PPP) said on Thursday.

As of Thursday, lawmakers of Commission I and III said they had not received a full picture of what the agreements entailed as the government had not released the official documents to the public.

"What have been circulating are only the points of the agreement, not in the form of an official document that has been signed,” Commission I member H. Sukamta of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said on Tuesday. “The documents relating to extradition, airspace services and defense cooperation that have been signed must be accessible to the public."

In a closed-door meeting with Commission I last Thursday, just two days after the Jokowi-Lee meeting, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto was reportedly grilled by lawmakers over the three strategic agreements.

Commission I member Effendi Simbolon from the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said that the meeting had become heated as lawmakers raised questions over the rationale behind the government’s move to sign the renewed commitment to realize the DCA, which had fallen by the wayside since 2007.

Questions were leveled at Prabowo as to why the content of an earlier agreement was maintained and why it was locked in with the FIR and extradition treaty. The DCA between Indonesia and Singapore was signed by the governments of both countries in 2007, but was never ratified by the House.

"Our objection was difficult for the government to answer. Why are we bartering with the military training area? Why are we trading the extradition treaty, pursuing the fugitives, for our sovereignty?" said Effendi.

Utut Adianto, Commission I deputy chairman and a PDI-P politician, criticized the government for not consulting with the House first before making the deals.

“The government should have consulted with the House first, then proceeded with the signing. We only found out later from television,” Utut said after the meeting last Thursday.

Prabowo after the meeting confirmed to reporters that the content of the DCA signed last Tuesday remained the same as the 2007 version, which faced significant public opposition at the time. However, he contended that the cooperation on the military training area was safe as Singapore would need Indonesia’s permission to carry out military training in Indonesia’s territory.

“In my judgment, the defense cooperation has sufficient safeguards so that our national interests can be accommodated and protected," Prabowo said.

Syarifuddin Hasan, who was a member of Commission I from the Democratic Party in 2007, said that then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono decided not to submit a presidential letter asking for the House to ratify the agreements as the extradition treaty was paired with the DCA.

“Singapore insisted that the extradition treaty be paired with the DCA, which SBY at the time did not agree to,” he said on Thursday.

Syarifuddin said that the government’s recent move to sign the bundle of agreements posed a threat to Indonesia’s sovereignty.

Despite growing criticism leveled at the government, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly, who is also a PDI-P politician, said that he was confident that all stakeholders, including lawmakers, had a mutual understanding of the national interests.

"The government will be pushing for the acceleration of the ratification process and we believe that all relevant parties will have the same view, given the enormous benefits we will get from pursuing criminals," Yasonna told reporters on Wednesday.

Two professors from the University of Indonesia and Padjajaran University criticized on Thursday the government’s decision to delegate flight services up to an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,278 meters) above Batam and Bintan to the Singapore aviation authority, while taking control over all flights beyond this altitude, which is part of the FIR deal signed by Indonesia and Singapore last week.

The airspace is currently under Singapore's FIR, and the two countries will still need to jointly submit their agreement to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which would have to approve the changes.

 

– Fadli contributed to this story from Batam