Alan Wheatley, London – Leading industrial nations bluntly told Indonesian President Suharto on Saturday they expected him to enact sweeping political reforms to head off social unrest triggered by the country's economic crisis.
The warning was issued by finance and foreign ministers of the Group of Eight industrial nations, who spent much of a two-day meeting discussing the fall-out of financial turbulence in Asia, particularly Indonesia.
"The world is now watching Indonesia, and it is in my view important that we have a government that recognises the social problems that exist in their country," British finance minister Gordon Brown told a closing news conference.
The G8 has looked on with growing anxiety as protests have spread in the country of 200 million that Suharto has ruled for 32 years.
"The situation is very severe," Japanese Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi said. "We are very concerned."
Violence flared this week after sharp rises in fuel and transport prices, part of a belt-tightening programme agreed with the International Monetary Fund, added further misery to the lot of ordinary Indonesians facing a wage freeze, rising unemployment and higher food prices.
Japanese Finance Minister Hikaru Matsunaga said the riots would not deter Tokyo from helping Jakarta to implement what would inevitably be painful reforms.
"We should not halt financial assistance just because of the riots," Matsunaga said.
The ministers were preparing the ground for next weekend's G8 summit in Birmingham, which French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn hoped would yield a "firm resolution" on Indonesia.
The economic crisis has given impetus to the reform movement in a country where public politics are essentially banned in the interval between five-yearly general elections.
Repeating what he said he told Suharto in Jakarta earlier this week, Brown added: "The economic reform which is necessary to advance the interests of the poor and the unemployed in Indonesia will have to be matched by political reform that respects individual rights and by social measures that protect the most disadvantaged in the community." Suharto, 76, reelected to a seventh five-year term in March, said last week that he favoured political reform and that some changes could be expected in time for the next poll in 2002.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, Brown's co-host for the talks, said the G8 concluded that those countries in Asia with good, open governance had coped better with the financial turbulence that had swept their markets.
Alluding to Indonesia, Cook said: "There is a clear lesson here, which is that open financial markets require an open political system and that getting on top of the financial turbulence also requires progress on social reform and political development.
"That is a lesson that is applicable across the region," Cook said.
Suharto arrived in Cairo on Saturday for a state visit and to attend a summit of developing countries.
Before he left Jakarta, he appealed for stability. "If we do not pay attention to stability, both political and from the security point of view, it will be more difficult for us to restore confidence and overcome the crisis," he said.