ID :
62742
Wed, 05/27/2009 - 15:14
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/62742
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News Focus: GOVT URGED TO BE SERIOUS IN HANDLING OUTER ISLANDS
By Eliswan Azly
Jakarta, May 27 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian government has been urged to be serious in handling and defending 92 outer islands across the archipelago to prevent the islands from being claimed by foreigners.
"The government should remain serious in guarding the outer islands. It should, for example, deploy more marine or army troops to the islands which directly share sea borders with neighboring countries," an expert on international law, Prof Dr Suhaidi, said in Medan on Wednesday.
Commenting on 92 outer islands of Indonesia seen vulnerable to being possibly claimed by foreigners, he said the outer islands really belonged to the state and therefore sea border poles as demarcation should be immediately set up.
"The problem of Indonesia's sea borders with neighboring countries should be immediately determined and discussed, so that we can easily supervise them or need not be worried about possible claims by foreigners in the future," said Suhaidi who is also a professor at the law faculty of the state university of North Sumatra.
Furthermore, he also stressed that in the context of outer islands, Indonesia should learn from bad experience in the past with the loss of Sipadan and Ligitan islands taken by our neighboring country just because of less control and attention given by the government to the people living in the two islands.
In fact, Sipadan and Ligitan have long been in the territory of Indonesia. "This case should not recur in the future and it could be made as a precious lesson," he said.
According to him, the government of Indonesia should strengthen its navy in patrolling the outer islands. This is of the significance as the enemies will always come from the sea and not from the land.
In addition, Indonesia is the biggest archipelagic country in the world, so it is natural if the waters and outer islands get serious security from the naval forces in order not to let foreigners claim one of the islands as their own.
Earlier, Ono Kurnaen Sumardiharga, a researcher of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said the fate of 92 outer islands could be similar to that of the Sipadan and Ligitan islands that were handed over to Malaysia in 2002, as the government failed to take action to protect them.
"If the government takes no action, 92 outer islands risk a similar fate to the Sipadan and Ligitan islands," Ono, also an oceanography professor at the University of Indonesia, said Sunday, as quoted by kompas.com.
Indonesia lost a long-standing battle with Malaysia over the Sipadan and Ligitan islands when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarded the islands in the Sulawesi Sea to Malaysia.
Ono said among the vulnerable islands were some islands near Biak in Papua and Natuna in the Riau Islands.
"First, foreign fishermen often moor their ships in the uninhabited outer islands. They could then reside there and raise their countries' flags before claiming the islands as their own," he said.
According to him, aside from a lack of physical activities, the government officials also rarely visited the outer islands. Therefore he was very concerned about the risk outer islands becoming over populated from the influx of illegal migrants in the area.
"In case of Sangihe regency in North Sulawesi, many residents speak the Tagalog language, the Philippines' most widely spoken language," he said.
Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah refuted the claim, saying the government had registered all outer islands in the country's map.
"The possibility of foreigners claiming Indonesia's outer islands as their property is very slim since we have registered them the outer islands in our national maps," he was quoted by the the Jakarta Post on Sunday.
"What we are concerned with is illegal fishing practices," he said.
He also insisted cases similar to that of Sipadan and Ligitan islands would never happen again in Indonesia.
"We have finished negotiating border issues with other countries. We use the outer islands as a basis to determine our sea borders with other countries," he said.
Ono said the government needed to increase patrols around the outer islands and place Indonesian Navy officers there to prevent foreigners entering the uninhabited islands.
He said the government could also cooperate with private investors to manage the outer islands as tourism areas.
Earlier, the Aru Islands administration in Southeast Maluku admitted it had intensified patrols around its outer islands to prevent intruders from entering the area illegally. Maluku has 18 outer islands, mostly uninhabited.
Eight outer islands are located in the Aru Island regency and the other 10 are in Southwest Maluku.
Indonesia has about 5.8 million square kilometers of sea and about 17,500 small islands, many of which have remained unnamed and uninhabited.
The government has also admitted the rising sea level brought about by climate change could also cause 2,000 of the country's islands to disappear.***
Jakarta, May 27 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian government has been urged to be serious in handling and defending 92 outer islands across the archipelago to prevent the islands from being claimed by foreigners.
"The government should remain serious in guarding the outer islands. It should, for example, deploy more marine or army troops to the islands which directly share sea borders with neighboring countries," an expert on international law, Prof Dr Suhaidi, said in Medan on Wednesday.
Commenting on 92 outer islands of Indonesia seen vulnerable to being possibly claimed by foreigners, he said the outer islands really belonged to the state and therefore sea border poles as demarcation should be immediately set up.
"The problem of Indonesia's sea borders with neighboring countries should be immediately determined and discussed, so that we can easily supervise them or need not be worried about possible claims by foreigners in the future," said Suhaidi who is also a professor at the law faculty of the state university of North Sumatra.
Furthermore, he also stressed that in the context of outer islands, Indonesia should learn from bad experience in the past with the loss of Sipadan and Ligitan islands taken by our neighboring country just because of less control and attention given by the government to the people living in the two islands.
In fact, Sipadan and Ligitan have long been in the territory of Indonesia. "This case should not recur in the future and it could be made as a precious lesson," he said.
According to him, the government of Indonesia should strengthen its navy in patrolling the outer islands. This is of the significance as the enemies will always come from the sea and not from the land.
In addition, Indonesia is the biggest archipelagic country in the world, so it is natural if the waters and outer islands get serious security from the naval forces in order not to let foreigners claim one of the islands as their own.
Earlier, Ono Kurnaen Sumardiharga, a researcher of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said the fate of 92 outer islands could be similar to that of the Sipadan and Ligitan islands that were handed over to Malaysia in 2002, as the government failed to take action to protect them.
"If the government takes no action, 92 outer islands risk a similar fate to the Sipadan and Ligitan islands," Ono, also an oceanography professor at the University of Indonesia, said Sunday, as quoted by kompas.com.
Indonesia lost a long-standing battle with Malaysia over the Sipadan and Ligitan islands when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarded the islands in the Sulawesi Sea to Malaysia.
Ono said among the vulnerable islands were some islands near Biak in Papua and Natuna in the Riau Islands.
"First, foreign fishermen often moor their ships in the uninhabited outer islands. They could then reside there and raise their countries' flags before claiming the islands as their own," he said.
According to him, aside from a lack of physical activities, the government officials also rarely visited the outer islands. Therefore he was very concerned about the risk outer islands becoming over populated from the influx of illegal migrants in the area.
"In case of Sangihe regency in North Sulawesi, many residents speak the Tagalog language, the Philippines' most widely spoken language," he said.
Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah refuted the claim, saying the government had registered all outer islands in the country's map.
"The possibility of foreigners claiming Indonesia's outer islands as their property is very slim since we have registered them the outer islands in our national maps," he was quoted by the the Jakarta Post on Sunday.
"What we are concerned with is illegal fishing practices," he said.
He also insisted cases similar to that of Sipadan and Ligitan islands would never happen again in Indonesia.
"We have finished negotiating border issues with other countries. We use the outer islands as a basis to determine our sea borders with other countries," he said.
Ono said the government needed to increase patrols around the outer islands and place Indonesian Navy officers there to prevent foreigners entering the uninhabited islands.
He said the government could also cooperate with private investors to manage the outer islands as tourism areas.
Earlier, the Aru Islands administration in Southeast Maluku admitted it had intensified patrols around its outer islands to prevent intruders from entering the area illegally. Maluku has 18 outer islands, mostly uninhabited.
Eight outer islands are located in the Aru Island regency and the other 10 are in Southwest Maluku.
Indonesia has about 5.8 million square kilometers of sea and about 17,500 small islands, many of which have remained unnamed and uninhabited.
The government has also admitted the rising sea level brought about by climate change could also cause 2,000 of the country's islands to disappear.***
