[stop-imf] Indonesian Govt Urged to Stop IMF Cooperation

[Robert Weissman]

Asia Times [online]
October 4, 2002

Indonesian Govt Urged to Stop IMF Cooperation

KENDARI, SE Sulawesi, Indonesia - The People's Consultative Assembly has

urged the government to stop its cooperation with the International
Monetary
Fund (IMF) as early as late 2003 on the grounds that the Fund cannot do
much
to overcome the country's economic crisis.

"The MPR has instructed the government to ask the IMF to leave our
country in
late 2003," MPR Chief Amien Rais said in his political address to
members of
the National Mandate Party, of which he is chairman on Wednesday.

Amien is here for a two-day visit to install the party's district and
provincial executive boards. "We will say goodby to the IMF. Please go
back
to America quickly. We don't need you because you can do nothing," he
said.

After being "nursed" by the IMF for four years, the Indonesian economy
was
getting worse because the "recipes" given by the IMF proved ineffective,
he
said. It would be better for the Indonesian nation to overcome the
economic
crisis on its own by making optimum use of its capacities, he said.

"We know well our own problems. There is no need to praise America. We
will
say goodby to the IMF," he said. The IMF has been widely criticized for
playing a big part in determining the course of Indonesia's economic and

political conditions.

Chairman of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) Kwik
Kian Gie
had once expressed concern about the way in which the IMF was handling
Indonesia's foreign debts and asked the government to review its
cooperation
with the IMF, saying it was no longer suitable for the country.

However, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti

asked the people last June not to criticize and attack the IMF, the
World
Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) because this would jeopardize
Indonesia's position in dealing with its debt problems.

He said the IMF, the World Bank and the ADB represented the political
systems
of hundreds of established countries.

(Asia Pulse/Antara)