HUMANITARIAN PROGRAMMES TO INDONESIA

HUMANITARIAN PROGRAMMES TO INDONESIA: 1.

Mr Arthur Fong asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs (a) what civil resources were deployed in various humanitarian programmes to Indonesia for each year in the last 5 years; (b) how many man-hours were expended in the years since 2002; and (c) what is the amount of aid (including infrastructure assistance) in dollar terms.

The Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Dr Balaji Sadasivan) (for the Minister for Foreign Affairs): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, Singapore has given considerable humanitarian assistance to Indonesia. The bulk of our efforts was focused on the 2004 tsunami. The SAF and SCDF provided emergency logistics support and medical relief to the people of Meulaboh, the worst hit area in Aceh.

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NGOs, such as the Singapore Red Cross and Mercy Relief, played their part. Many Singaporeans contributed generously while others gave their time. In all, Singapore provided more than S$70 million in tsunami assistance. Thanks to these efforts, life in Meulaboh has returned to normal. Beyond the tsunami, Singapore has provided assistance to Indonesia during the Nias earthquake in March 2005, the subsequent earthquake in Central Java in 2006 and, more recently, the floods in Jakarta. Much of our assistance takes the form of essential items such as medical supplies, tents and blankets. Singapore is a small country. What we can offer cannot be compared to the contributions from larger donors. But when disaster strikes, Singaporeans have shown time and time again that they are more than willing to come to the help of our neighbours.

Mr Arthur Fong (West Coast): Sir, in view of the negative comments coming out of Indonesia recently, many Singaporeans have asked, should we continue to assist and whether, in view of many more natural disasters that might crop up, eg, recently, even ourselves in Singapore, we have had these tremors, should we commit our resources further towards this?

Dr Balaji Sadasivan: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I can understand why some Singaporeans are questioning our continuing assistance to our neighbours, despite their unfriendly remarks against us. But I do not believe that we should stop being helpful even when there are difficulties in bilateral relations. As Minister George Yeo said in his COS speech on Monday, when he spoke about our relations with Indonesia: "We should still help them when they are in difficulty not because we expect gratitude or reward, but because that is the right thing to do.".

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As this House is aware, Singapore and Indonesia are close neighbours. The relationship is broad-based. From time to time, there will be periodic ups and downs. We should expect these. But we should respond in a mature manner. We should not hold back helping our neighbours during times of need.

In this regard, as I noted earlier, Singaporeans have been more than willing to come to the help of our neighbours when disaster strikes. To cite just a few examples: in the aftermath of the December 2004 earthquake and tsunami, the Singapore Red Cross collected S$88 million from Singaporeans for their Tidal Waves Asia Fund. More recently, during the recent floods in Jakarta, our Muslim community here raised S$72,000 for the flood victims. The Singaporean community in Jakarta also rallied together and contributed relief aid.

We should be proud of the fact that many of our fellow Singaporeans are generous and civic-minded. This augurs well for the people-to-people relations between Singapore and our neighbours.