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Indonesia praises Chinese aid, commitment
By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-01-08 01:33
China's aid contributions and commitments to Indonesia are helping solve
immediate disaster relief needs and leading to long-term rehabilitation efforts
in the tsunami-battered country, officials said on Friday.
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| Workers carries relief supplies sent from China on January 7, 2005.
[Xinhua] | Meanwhile, ethnic Chinese communities have set up a disaster-relief centre to
collect additional funds and help distribute relief materials.
"The commitment from China has been very generous, and China is helping in
many ways, not just in funding, but in more specific areas, for instance
providing a field hospital," Indonesia's Minister of Trade Mari Pangestu told
China Daily.
The minister was referring to a temporary medical facility a Chinese rescue
team set up in Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh Province, which was worst hit by the
December 26 tsunami.
With the one facility vitally needed and welcomed in the afflicted area, the
Indonesian Health Ministry on Friday requested visiting Chinese Vice-Foreign
Minister Wu Dawei to put four more such field hospitals in place, according to
Pangestu.
Though China's pledge of funds is not as large as some countries, it has been
timely and life-saving.
"China is a developing country... I think it is not the amount that matters
but the sincerity of the efforts," said Pangestu. "The fact that Premier Wen
Jiabao himself came (to an emergency summit on aftermath of earthquake and
tsunami), I think, is very highly appreciated."
The premier said on Thursday China is committed to reconstruction and
long-term development of the affected countries.
Wen promised at Thursday's meeting China will be doing its very best to help
the countries, including writing-off or reducing government debts, encouraging
Chinese firms to rebuild infrastructure, and helping set up quake-monitoring
networks.
Minister Pangestu said the tsunami early warning system, badly needed for the
Indian Ocean, is another way China can help -- China has expertise and
experience in calamity monitoring forecast, she said.
Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Yuri Thamrin on Friday
said Indonesia's reconstruction and rehabilitation will be a long process that
may cost up to 10 years.
He said Indonesia thanked China for its help, quoting a saying: "A friend in
need is a friend in deed."
Asked about reported robbery cases fell upon ethnic Chinese people in Aceh,
Pangestu said she just came back from Aceh, and found the reports were just
rumours.
Talking about relief work initiated by local Chinese communities, the
minister said they have made a lot of efforts to raise funds that will be used
to help the relief and the long-term rehabilitation in Aceh and North Sumatra
provinces.
At least 40 leading ethnic Chinese associations on Friday formed a
disaster-relief centre here, to facilitate the flow of donations to
destinations, according to Eddie Lembong, chairman of the Chinese Indonesian
Association.
Indra Wahidin, vice-chairman of the North Sumatra Province Red Cross Society,
said the unified relief centre could help gather otherwise scattered donations
to focus on the needs of the hardest affected.
"Donations raised by ethnic Chinese in Indonesia will surely go to disaster
victims of other ethnic groups in Indonesia," said Wahidin, who flew to Jakarta
to introduce North Sumatra's relief experience to the newly established centre.
A major task of the relief centre is to help the government speed up
distribution of aid materials that have been pouring in but piled up at ports,
he said.
Over the past few days, relief centres run by ethnic Chinese in Medan,
capital of North Sumatra, have sent batches of aid materials to Aceh, where
Chinese victims are relatively fewer, because most have been evacuated to Medan,
he said.
Ted Sioeng, who runs the International Daily News, a Chinese-language
newspaper in Indonesia, said on Friday his paper has been making appeals for
more donations.
Chinese Ambassador to Indonesia Lu Shuming said on Friday his embassy had so
far not found any Chinese victims of the tsunami, either from the mainland, Hong
Kong, Macao or Taiwan.
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