We need your help, we hate you, we need your help.

Jakarta guy wearing hat: "We hate everyone, including ourselves". Guy holding hat: "Kool"!

We need your help, we hate you, we need your help.
By Kornelius Purba Jnr
Jan 29, 2007, 07:03

It seems a sure bet; Indonesia suffers some disaster it can not cope with itself because all the country’s money is milked rotten by the "people" in control and immediately asks the International community for help yet again. But what gets less well reported is the fact that when foreigners go to help Indonesia, Indonesians get increasingly xenophobic and start making particularly nasty and false allegations against them. This goes beyond ingratitude, it extends as far as ingrate racial hatred born from jealousy, and it originates from the top [sic].

When foreign aid agencies rushed to Aceh to help those afflicted after the December 2004 tsunami, the Indonesian Military (TNI) showed their nation's gratitude by restricting the movement of international aid workers and foreign military personnel there to help. Foreign ships and planes were required to obtain clearance for whatever they did and have Indonesian “military liaison officers” with them at all times, which in the context of emergency aid is ridiculous. Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla then ordered the foreign troops there ensured aid agencies left Indonesia within three months, amid allegations that foreign troops were engaged in espionage on behalf of their governments; which is highly ironic as Indonesia has previously relied heavily on countries like the USA, Britain and Australia for intelligence against insurgents (people who want independence and / or a less than pro-western government). Of course with the vice president himself publicly showing such utter contempt and ingratitude, the Indonesian masses can hardly be blamed for following suit.

After May 2006’s earthquake in Yogyakarta the Indonesian government wasted no time in appealing for international help, but no sooner had foreign medical personnel and volunteers arrived to help victims, then leaders in Jakarta demanded to know how long they would be there. Lately international assistance locating missing Adam Air flight KI 574, such as specialist search and rescue plus location finding craft from Singapore and the USA has also been met with anti-western messages of hate on Indonesian chat sites, radio and even television. The fact it took the US Navy to find the black box recorder means nothing to the purveyors of malice, because they have been well trained or rather brain washed. Naturally Setio Rahardjo, chairman of the Indonesian National Commission on Transport Safety, then informed western media “We do not have the technology to retrieve the black boxes" and immediately U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Lynn Pascoe announces the US will do it for them; of course they will, the US government does not care about being hated, it makes so much money out of closed bid contracts from Indonesia it still pays to be "generous" in the face of such often deserved widespread antipathy towards them. But it is the fact that genuine western aid agencies and organizations get targetted as well as the US Government which makes it all wrong.

Such is the inherent hatred of everyday Indonesians against westerners, that most blame the International Monitory Fund for the Indonesian economic crisis of 1998, not Suharto's terrible governance. Of course they "forget" the economic crisis was Asian, that is widespread, not Indonesian and was not therefore the IMF “doing it” to Indonesia. SBY (mini-Suharto AKA Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) in true "screw westerners" form has now told the CGI (Consultative Group on Indonesia), the people who administer and monitor international loans to Indonesia that they will no longer work with (report to) them. This act equates to telling the CGI to “go to hell” according to Jakarta Post hack Kornelius Purba, who clearly supports this decision and how. Of course SBY only told the CGI to go to hell after they had given Indonesia billions of dollars of aid under agreement they would be able to monitor and even say how it was used; so to be more precise it is a case of “Yes, we agree to your aid conditions”, then “Thank you for the money, it has arrived, we renage on our word, now go to hell!”

Triumphant Jakarta Post sleuth Kornelius goes on in provocation (given he is writing for an English language newspaper targeted at foreigners) “No matter how generous you are with your money, Indonesia is a sovereign nation with the freedom to use your funds as it pleases. Your advice is not needed and your risk is none of our business.” as he applauds Indonesia’s new "give-us-the-money-and-go-away" (his term, not ours) doctrine. Indonesian hack Purba then blurts “What if one day Indonesia realizes that the President made the wrong decision? We shouldn't worry. Major creditors like Japan, the World Bank, the United States and the Asian Development Bank will continue to beg Indonesia: ‘Please, take our money. We will lose our international credibility if you do not take our money.’” Although Kornelius may be right, he certainly lacks the diplomatic gratuity and common sense one might normally expect from an incompetent group of failures who other people have to subsidize on an ongoing basis. After all the reason why Indonesia is in such a financial state is because it is governed by a bunch of crooks who are only in it for their own bank balances; remember, news this week is that corruption is at an all time high in the RI. The Jakarta Post reporter's own inherent Javanese jealousy and stupidity shown by not realizing or rather conceding the reason the CGI needs to monitor the money foreigners provide Indonesia is to make sure the cronies that govern the RI do not either spend it on arms to kill civilians and / or simply put it in their own pockets. We hope that every foreigner reading his words will be as incensed as we are and will actually do something about it at their own ballot polls in the future. Also by not investing or spending money in Indonesia or on Indonesian products until the attitude against us ends; and it will only end surely when the perpetrators in charge of Indonesia are replaced with real people.

We hope no foreign aid workers in Aceh are reading this because while Indonesians are voicing messages of hate and jealous malice against them, they are in a very uncomfortable situation desperately trying to restore basic housing, services, etc. to the people while at the same time Indonesian officials, managers and workers are busy bleeding money from the funds and goods from the various aid depots to such an extent that people are still living in temporary shelters 2 years on in spite of massive aid funding. The RI thieves clearly do not hate our money!

Fortunately for Indonesia, westerners are far better human beings then Indonesians. Almost certainly western aid agencies will continue to give hope and aid to a people who need it, such aid given solely on the basis of humanity; something sadly amiss in Indonesia. It is a shame that Indonesians do not recognize their real enemies, the cockroaches in their own government and local authorities who bleed their own financial resources dry, which would negate the need for foreign help in the first place. Let us not forget Indonesia is a Group 20 country, one of the twenty most wealthy countries in the world; yet they are forever asking for International aid and assistance against a backdrop of western hate.

Let us realize we need the corruption to go in Indonesia before the hate against foreigners can go with it. That the reasons Indonesians hate foreigners so much is because of jealousy and because their own government supports such loathsome behavior in order to deflect that hate from being focused where it belongs. Although the west truly can never say “No” to helping the needy in Indonesia, let us look at providing more than a band aid and a source of new funding to extort money from, plus a chance for the xenophobes to again have their day. Let us recognize President Yudhoyono and his cronies for what they are and do something to get rid of them and their malice, not keep them in power as George, John and Tony think is in our best interests. Sure, if the call comes from Indonesia for assistance after a natural disaster, may the west continue to give what it can and as quickly as it can. But when it comes to investment and / or taking holidays in Indonesia, let westerners never forget Indonesians generally, ungratefully and ungraciously hate us; that we are simply money trees with unwelcome human rights.