Indonesia displays strong diplomacy in marine issues

His guttural, hoarse voice —due to the cold wind of New York — was not enough to sink stern tone that Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan expressed during several sessions in United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference on Tuesday.

For around 20 minutes in the United Nations’ (UN) press briefing, Luhut talked in a tone that he used to show, back then when he addressed national security issues as Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister.

“The government should help the poor fishermen, otherwise they can turn into anything, such as being part of radicalism. If you want to let this to happen, then do it. But we don’t,” he said, answering a journalist who was questioning Indonesia’s effort to annul developed countries’ subsidy for fish companies while at the same time providing subsidy for artisanal fishers.

Indonesia, and several World Trade Organization (WTO) members had pressed on negotiations on potential disciplines for fisheries subsidies in a cluster of meetings from 15 to 18 May. It is part of an effort by the WTO’s Negotiating Group on Rules (NGR) to reach an outcome at the 11th Ministerial Conference (MC11) in Buenos Aires, Argentine on 11 to 14 Dec.

The European Union (EU) member countries, Luhut further argued, should pay bigger attention on how the subsidy that leaked into big fishing companies could end up destroying the ocean and breaking other countries’ territory by illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The IUU fishing is one of Indonesia’s main target to address in the Ocean Conference, along with two other issues namely coral conservation and marine plastic debris. In several cases, the illegal poaching is conducted by big ships that enjoy subsidies allowing them to fish thousand miles into other countries’ territory.

Indonesia is among developing country members that demand WTO to apply the disciplines only on subsidies that support large-scale, industrial fishing outside exclusive economic zones (EEZ), with negative ramifications or exceptions for smaller fishing.

“They don’t pay tax [in other country’s territory]. They just take away anything, and destroy everything,” Luhut said. “Meanwhile, we don’t subsidize big companies. No! You can check it, I promise you. We only subsidize the small fishermen, provide boats for poor people.”

Such a strong intonation was also displayed during his remark in front of the UN members at the plenary meeting, especially when it came to the government’s effort to win three targets: classifying IUU fishing as transnational organized crime, expediting coral conservation, and reducing marine plastic debris.

In the very first day of the Ocean Conference, Luhut addressed the marine debris issue in the Partnership Dialogue on Addressing Marine Pollution that he co-chaired with Norway counterpart.

“Indonesia has taken strong stands against many of those challenges, including on marine plastic debris and illegal fishing, foreign and domestic […] Indonesia has pledged to reduce marine plastic debris by 70 percent within 8 years and also finance a US$1 billion program of solid waste management,” he said.

As for IUU fishing, the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti took a lead by presenting Indonesia’s initiative in the side event themed “Transnational Organized Crime in Fisheries Industry.”

She was flanked directly by the UN General Assembly Peter Thomson, Norway’s permanent representative to UN Geir O. Pedersen, Interpol’s special representatives Emanuel Roux, and UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) deputy executive director Aldo Lale-Demoz.

Transnational organized fisheries crime, Susi asserted, had to be taken seriously by countries and international organizations as it destroyed oceans, mocking sovereignty, and even abusing human rights.

“Indonesia is calling for the world to take actions […] There needs to be an independent expert team that is established by the UN that recommends the plan to institutionalize transnational organized fisheries crime and to push the acknowledgment under the UN General Assembly Resolution,” she called.

Luhut said the inclusion of IUU fishing into transnational organized crime would allow all countries to involve the Interpol in chasing the perpetrators and to investigate with UNODC into wider economic n business aspects of the case such cross-border tax fraud and international document forgery.

If Indonesia wins its goal in the Ocean Conference, he continued, there would be huge benefits especially in the form of higher economic growth and wider job opportunity for people living in coastal areas.

“We are the largest archipelagic country in the world here. Our diplomacy team knows the task very well. In this issue, we cannot be too soft. We should be aggressive as long as supported by valid data,” said Luhut.