Remarks by the ARF Leader – Indonesia
Primo A. Joelianto
HE. Mr. Li Liquo
Vice Minister for Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China,
Distinguished Participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Very good morning,
It is a special privilege for me and all delegates to be here in the beautiful coastal city of Qingdao. The conduciveatmosphere of the city together with its friendly citizen is indeed the right place to convene this very important meeting. In the light of this, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Indonesia together all participants, allow me to extend our greatest gratitude to the Government of the People’s Republic of China for such an excellent arrangement and preparation for the 6th ASEAN Regional Forum Intersessional Meeting on Disaster Relief we are convening today.
It is also an honour for the Government of the Republic of Indonesia to Co-Chair this significant meeting. With the theme “Sharing Disaster Relief Resources”, I believe that this meeting would come up with valuable recommendation in disaster relief cooperation. I deem this meeting is very timely, taking into account that many of ARF participants are facing with nature’s greatest challenge for the past few years.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I believe that most of us shared a view that various disasters was not just happened the way they were. Natural factor is one of the various reasons for the disaster to caused tremendous catastrophe. However, the biggest factor is our inability to maintain environment sustainability as well as our weakness to reduce disaster risks. The degrading environmental quality adds up factor for such a catastrophe.
In such situation, it is timely yet imperative for us to establish such a disaster preparedness system of our region. As we know, state to some extent was blamed for its failure in building education system, especially in alarming social awareness on disaster. State is also blamed for its failure to protect environment.
The most pertinent issue is that up to now, there was no country that is able to deal with natural disaster on their own, and no one can refuse disaster to happen. In addition to that, unfortunately there is no common disaster relief mechanism, neither for natural disaster nor man-made disaster. Such mechanism is of a paramount importance for us to have, taking into account that no disaster victims have enough time to wait for a long time for the assistance to reach them.
In that situation, we believe that this meeting is so timely, especially to review regional disaster relief cooperation, stock taking resources and modalities of the ARF disaster relief, as well as to start considering the ARFguideline and standby arrangement and response system for disaster relief.
Distinguished Participants,
Once again, I wish the meeting a lot of success and thank you
Qingdao, 19th of September 2006