The year 1971 has ended on a high note,
largely due to Adam Malik’s successful presidency of the UN General Assembly.
The Indonesian mission was flush with pride at having played a key role in his
stellar performance in the General Assembly. After the initial excitement, I
too had to settle down and attend to matters at hand. Soon our mission was busy
once again setting our priorities at the United Nations.
In early 1972, I received a special cable from Foreign Minister Adam Malik informing me of some very good news. I had been appointed as Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Community to succeed Ambassador Chaidir Anwar Sani, who in turn had been appointed as Ambassador to the United Nations. A career diplomat’s highest hopes are to attain an ambassadorship, and I was of course delighted that I was given this important privilege to serve my country. Many of my colleagues also became ambassadors. To name but a few were Abdullah Kamil, Suyono Darusman, Hadi Thajeb, Munawir Sjadzali, Atmono Suryo, M. Choesin and Ferdy Salim.
I found out later that the post initially
had been offered to the former Indonesia Chief of Police Hugeng, who was the
armed forces candidate for the job. He refused the offer, however, and
President Soeharto subsequently appointed me as Adam Malik’s choice for the
post.
My appointment received the necessary
agreements from the King of Belgium, the Duke of Luxembourg as well as the Head
of the European Community. On January 8, 1972 I was sworn in by President Soeharto
as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Indonesia to
the Kingdom of Belgium, in a grand ceremony at the Istana which was witnessed
by my wife Nini, my mother, my sister, my parent-in-law and close relatives. I
was the only career diplomat among the eight ambassador sworn in on that day.
I arrived in Brussels along with Nini and
four of our six children in early February 1972. At that time my two eldest
sons, Barry and Ricky, were already studying in West Germany and Holland,
respectively. Because of its central location in the heart of West Europe,
Belgium was the ideal gathering place for our immediate family and for our
extended family as well, for we had many relatives living in Holland.
On February 25, 1972 I presented my
credentials to King Baudouin of Belgium in a stately palace ceremony filled
with the trappings of European royalty. I presented my credentials to the Duke
of Luxembourg and to the Head of the European Community at a latter date. After
the official ceremony in Brussels, King Baudouin asked for a private discussion
with me. The King was curious to know why I was also named Boudewijn like him.
Without hesitation I replied in Dutch, for this was the language I was
requested to use with the King, “Your Majesty, I was named Boudewijn (Baudouin
in French) by my father because in his farsightedness he saw his son one day
becoming Ambassador to Belgium”. Upon hearing my reply the King smiled and thus
the ice was broken. I had a most enjoyable conversation with the King.
My duties as head of the
Indonesian embassy in Brussels were twofold. First, to represent Indonesia’s
interests in Belgium and Luxemburg. Second, to broaden Indonesia’s
participation in the European community. It was a challenging but fulfilling task,
and it gave me the opportunity to interact at all levels with
leading European statesmen, Belgian royalty, and with the
Indonesian community in Europe whose numbers in Belgium alone were quite large
(mostly students).
On several occasion I has the honour of meeting KING Leopold, the father of King Baudouin who had abdicated the throne in favour of his son. King Leopold was a keen observer of Indonesia and was well-versed in our country’s history and culture, much to my embarrassment as it turns out. Once he asked me about the fate of some rare species of monkeys inhabiting a forest on a small island south of Nias, West Sumatra He was worried that the monkeys would face extinction due to the government plans to cut down trees to develop the area. I had to ensure him that the government would take due precaution before embarking on such a project not knowing that this was in fact true.
On another occasion he asked to see me as
he was planning to visit Bengkulu where the famous Rafflesia flower blooms.
Since his first stop would be the city of Padang he wanted to know how far the
distance would be to Bengkulu. He had a map of Indonesia spread out before him
an d measured the distance from Padang to Bengkulu which he estimated to be not
more than 150 km. So one could travel the distance in three hours King Leopold
ventured. I told him that in my opinion that it would take longer than that as
the roads were not good. I even suggested that he should travel by ship
instead. Then he asked me when would be a good time to catch the Rafflesia
flower in full bloom, I answered sheepishly that I did not know and that I had
to consult Jakarta first.
Because Belgium recognizes both French and
Flemish as official languages, we faced little difficulties in getting about
the country. Flemish is closely related to Dutch which Nini and I speak
fluently. Nini is fluent in French dating back to her early days in New York
where she took French lesson. In the Alliance Francaise although my own French
was passable. At one time during my tenure in Brussels, the Foreign Minister of
Belgium was replaced by a Flemish-speaking minister. Before him there had
always been French speaking foreign Minister When it came time to make a
courtesy call on the new minister, I found
out that the Ambassadors who had called on him before me were embarrassed when
he refused to speak to them in French. The issue of language is a very
sensitive matter in Belgium. Thus when my turn came, I decided to speak in
Dutch. He was highly pleased that he replied, in Flemish of course “You are a
good friend of mine”
In the early 1970s, the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN as it is known, started to emerge as a
regional grouping of growing political and economic importance. At the time
ASEAN comprised the five founding members of Malaysia, Indonesia, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. One promising area of cooperation with the
European Community was within the framework of the ASEAN dialogue with its counterpart,
the European Economic Commission (EEC). The EEC was the economic branch of the
European Community.
The EEC had at that time no Asian
police. They preferred to deal with each country in Asian on a bilateral basis.
ASEAN did not figure prominently on its agenda. It was in this context that the
ASEAN ambassadors accredited to Belgium and/or EEC-namely
myself and my colleagues from
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand-decided to establish formal
relations with the European Economic Commission. Over time we managed to
develop good personal relations with the EC Commissioner for External
Relations, Dahrendorf. After a number of meetings with Mr. Dahrendoft and with
EC President Mansholt, we were able to convince the EEC to establish formal dialogues
with ASEAN. As a result, the ASEAN-Brussels Committee (ABC) was initiated as
ASEAN’s official channel in dialogues with the EEC. Gradually these dialogues
culminated in formal agreements between ASEAN and the EEC covering a wide range
of activities. The visit to Brussels of the then Indonesia Minister of Trade,
Prof. Dr. Soemitro Djojohadikoesoemo, to hold talks with Commissioner
Dahrendorf in July 1972 gave added weight to ASEAN-EEC relations.
It so happened that when President
Soeharto paid a state visit to Belgium, he was invited to address the EEC as
the spokesman for ASEAN. I was glad that I had played a part, albeit a small
one, in the establishment of ASEAN-EEC cooperation.
PRESIDENT SOEHARTO’S STATE VISIT TO
BELGIUM
One of the highlight’s of my posting in
Brussels was the state visit of President and Madame Tien Soeharto to Belgium
in November 1972. Being relatively new in the office, I had to work hard to
prepare for the President’s Visit. I received much assistance from my
counterparts in the Belgian Foreign Ministry and from officials of other
relevant ministries, as well as from the Indonesian community, including the
Indonesian students led by Syamsudin Mahmud who later became Governor of Aceh.
One major concern was the question of
security the President and his entourage. We were all aware of the activities
of a group of Ambonese dissidents based in the Netherlands who were seeking
independence for their homeland, the Moluccas. The younger dissidents
especially had become increasingly bold in their bid for an independent
homeland. Two years earlier in 1970, they had mounted a daring raid on the
Indonesian ambassador’s residence in the Hague in which Ambassador Taswin,s
family was taken hostage and one Dutch policeman was killed. Ambassador Taswin
himself barely managed to escape by scaling the neighbouring wall. With their
propensity for violence in the back of my mind, I feared that they might try to
create trouble during President Soeharto’s visit, as there was practically no
border between Belgium and Netherlands.
I raised this matter with the Belgian
police who were rather surprised at my concerns, but who nevertheless provided
extra security for the visit. The result was
that our embassy in Brussels was turned into a mini-fortress surrounded
by tanks, because a gathering for Madam Soeharto and the Indonesia women,
headed by Nini as the Ambassador’s wife, was to be held on the embassy grounds.
During the planning of the President’s
visit, the Belgian protocol office had relayed a request by King Leopold for a
meeting with President Soeharto. King Leopold, who had visited Indonesia
several times, knew that President Soeharto had planned to visit Waterloo, the
site of the battlefield where Napoleon’s army was defeated. Since King
Leopold’s castle was located along the way to Waterloo, he had hoped that the
President would be able to stop by for a short visit. However the Belgian
protocol office could not make this request through official channels because
King Leopold had no official function. Upon my personal request, President
Soeharto agreed to meet King Leopold and his family for a brief 15-minute
visit.
The presidential visit eventually
passed without a hitch, much to my considerable relief. President Soeharto was
well received by the people of Belgium and was warmly welcomed at the European
Commission members as the spokesman for ASEAN. The enthusiastic welcome
President Soeharto received at all his official function signalled Belgium’s
and the EEC’s acknowledgment of and respect for his role as one of the
important leaders in the developing world.
At the end of his state visit, President
Soeharto invited King Baudouin of Belgium to visit Indonesia. The King was keen
to see our country because he had heard so much about it from his father and
mother who had visited Indonesia in the 1930s as Crown Prince Leopold and Crown
Princess Astrid. A street in Bogor named Astrid Boulevard in honour of that
earlier visit.
When I took leave from King Baudouin at
the end of my term as Ambassador to Belgium, he requested me to convey his wish
to President Soeharto to stay in Indonesia longer than the normal duration for
a state visit. I conveyed his wish to the President. I was later told that the
King’s visit to Indonesia lasted 13 days, instead of the normal three to four
days of such a visit.
It was while I was in Brussels during my
15-month assignment that I was offered a most surprising appointment.
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