Icha Rastika, Jakarta – Defense Minister and presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto says foreign intelligence agencies are interfering in the land dispute on Rempang Island in Batam.
This was revealed by Prabowo during the opening of the "Symposium on Geo-politics and Geo-strategies and its Influence on Indonesia" at the Ministry of Defense complex in Central Jakarta on Thursday November 2.
Initially, Prabowo said that Indonesia is a country that is big and has mineral wealth. "So like it or not we're a target for big global forces", said Prabowo in front of the ministers and leaders of the TNI (Indonesian military) present at the event.
Prabowo then said that based on sources that he has, foreign intelligence agencies are interfering in conflicts in Indonesia. He gave as examples Rempang, Aceh, Ambon and Papua.
"Incidents like those in Rempang have already begun to show interference by foreign intelligence", said Prabowo.
"And we have also experienced this a lot in Aceh, in Ambon we've experience it, in East Timor, and we continually experience it in Papua, how foreign interference greatly influences our situation", said the former commander of the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) and the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad).
Prabowo said therefore that rapid geo-political and geo-strategic developments are influencing many countries in the world, including Indonesia.
"I see this is needed, because the development of geo-political dynamics develops so fast. Effects in one region of the world that seem far away from us, in the current era, have extraordinary influences throughout the world", Prabowo said.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Prabowo: Kasus Rempang Dicampuri Intelijen Asing seperti di Papua".]