In response to the editorial, “Indonesia is wrong” (BP, Dec 5) the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia wishes to state the following:
1. The Government of the Republic of Indonesia deems it necessary to impose its law effectively in fighting and combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing within its territory. The government took this policy measure after experiencing rampant activities of illegal fishing for many years, causing great loss to the Indonesian economy, and more importantly, the depletion of fishing stocks. In 2014 alone Indonesia lost around US$4 billion while around 30 million Indonesians are still living in poverty. Such a policy is therefore aimed at ensuring sustainable economic development, including through sustainable fishing practices. To achieve this noble goal, the Indonesian government is always more than happy to cooperate with our neighbouring countries.
2. Immediately after Indonesia’s new cabinet was formed, the Minister for Maritime and Fisheries Affairs invited five ambassadors, including the ambassador of Thailand, to explain the policy the Indonesian government was going to take and accordingly seek their co-operation. During the meeting the minister introduced a draft joint communique on “Voluntary International Co-operation to Combat Illegal Fishing, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) Fishing and to Promote Sustainable Fisheries Governance” between Indonesia and those friendly countries.
The government has also been working with the Thai government on fisheries co-operation and continuing to strengthen its co-operation through the conclusion of the renewed draft MoU on fisheries which includes the prevention and the elimination of IUU fishing for the mutual benefit of the two countries.
3. The measures that the Indonesian government has implemented are clearly also in line with the Asean community blueprint, which calls for joint efforts among Asean countries to combat IUU fishing in the region. Since illegal fishing activities in our region remain very serious in causing high economic loss as well as degrading the marine environment, there is an urgent need for Asean to even further strengthen and consolidate its anti-IUU fishing co-operation to rid our region of this menace.
For its part, the Government of the Republic of Indonesia will therefore continue to impose its laws against IUU fishing in a firm and lawful way.
Mr Subandrio
Counsellor for Information and Media Affairs,
Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia
Bangkok
Let courts have say
Re: “Lengthy jail terms threatened for lantern releases”, (BP, Dec 4).
Once again the independence and authority of the Thai judiciary seems to be undermined by bureaucrats who are “threatening lengthy prison sentences for those found guilty of breaching aviation safety laws” by the release of hot-air lanterns.
While transport officials may press charges against these people, it is surely up to the courts to decide first of all on whether the accused are guilty; then to set the appropriate penalty.
My comments should in no way be read as an endorsement of stupid people who release these lanterns near airports or under flight paths. They deserve whatever penalty the courts deem fit.
David Brown
No consent to fly
It has now been found that AirAsia did not have permission to fly from Surabaya to Singapore on Dec 28. This just adds to the tragedy.
To begin with, even if AirAsia had permission, it should not have sent out Flight 8501 at the time that it did. On the night before, it was all over the news about how the three southernmost Thai provinces and parts of Malaysia on the Thai border were deluged with rain and flooding. Sure enough, on the morning of the accident, the skies were filled with rain in Indonesia and Malaysia.
So the pilot of the flight asked for permission to fly higher, but was denied this request, due to the fact that other planes were already in the vicinity, with ironically one of them being from AirAsia.
This was unfortunate. Nonetheless, all problems would have been avoided had AirAsia heeded the weather warnings and not put the flight out into the middle of a storm. But did AirAsia do this? No. And the end result is the Indonesian government has immediately suspended all flights on the Surabaya to Singapore route.
Paul
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