Yeremia Sukoyo – Indonesian voters must not be swayed by a recent statement by the US ambassador appearing to call for a rights probe into presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, says Dino Patti Djalal, Jakarta's former envoy to Washington.

"Don't give any room to outsiders to make guerrilla maneuvers in our domestic politics," Dino, who mounted his own unsuccessful bid for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, said in Jakarta on Sunday.

He said it was common for foreign powers to try to sway opinion on the ground through accusations and aspersions, and stressed there was no need for Indonesians to be outraged at such attempts. "Overreacting may signify our low self-confidence and undetermined nationalism," Dino said.

His statements come amid a furor over an e-mail from Robert O. Blake Jr., the US ambassador in Indonesia, to the Wall Street Journal, in which the envoy said that while the United States did not take a position on the candidates in Indonesia's July 9 presidential election, "we do, however, take seriously allegations of human rights abuses, and urge the Indonesian government to fully investigate the claims."

The statement is understood to refer to Prabowo, the former head of the Army Special Forces (Kopassus) and Army Strategic Reserves (Kostrad), who is accused of rights abuses in East Timor in the early 1990s and the abduction of pro-democracy activists in Jakarta in 1997 and 1998.

Dino denied that he was speaking out in support of Prabowo – who has the backing of most senior Democrat officials, despite the party officially adopting a neutral line – saying instead that he wanted to see both candidates "unite over this principal matter" of foreign meddling.

Prabowo, who has spooked foreign investors with his nationalist rhetoric, embellished that standing even further with comments at a discussion in Jakarta on Saturday in which he called for Indonesia to reject Western ideals such as direct elections.

"Consciously or not, our [political] elites were all educated by the West, including [former president] Sukarno, [former vice president Mohammad] Hatta, [former prime minister Sutan] Syahrir, and even myself. We're products of the West," Prabowo said as quoted by Kompas at a culture dialogue at the Taman Ismail Marzuki cultural center in Central Jakarta.

He said that as a result, Indonesia had adopted Western cultural and political ideals and held them above Indonesian ones, "even though they're not appropriate."

"But we've gone too far," he said as quoted by Merdeka.com. "Like direct elections – we've already gone down that path. It's like someone addicted to smoking; if we ask them to stop, the process will be difficult.

"I believe much of our political and economic systems go against [Indonesia's] fundamental philosophy, laws and traditions, but what's done is done. We need a new consensus." If Prabowo becomes president, it will have been through a direct election – the very concept he questioned.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/dino-patti-djalal-comes-prabowos-defense/