JakartaPost-Sept 19, 2022
Indonesia’s delegation for the United Nations General Assembly dove into this year’s flurry of meetings during the High-Level Week without their President, amid adverse global challenges testing multilateralism and a shadow of criticism hanging over its human rights situation. It is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out that delegates from all across the globe would return to the annual UN meetings in person, after the World Health Organization proclaimed last week the world “had never been in a better position to end the pandemic”. Besides multilateral diplomatic engagements, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi is expected to meet bilaterally with many of her country counterparts, including all 20 members of the Group of 20 (G20) biggest economies. She is also expected to receive an award on behalf of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Monday, bestowed upon him by the Atlantic Council, an international relations-focused US think tank. The ministry previously confirmed the absence of Jokowi at the UN General Assembly and related events this year, at the behest of international relations observers. While the UNGA is sought to address the plethora of impending crises caused by COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, analysts and diplomats alike have expressed concerns that effective multilateralism has become increasingly elusive. Indonesia’s attendance at the global assembly is not without any baggage, as apparent in last week’s statement by the UN Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif, who expressed “shock” at the latest development of “intensified violence” in Papua. That the instability in Papua was brought up was hardly a surprise, despite Retno’s preventive efforts to keep the hot issue out of the UNGA agenda. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2022/09/18/indonesia-kicks-off-unga-week-with-much-to-prove.html.
