Aceh putting Indonesia at risk: Lee Sr

SINGAPORE'S Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said Tuesday any referendum in Indonesia's Aceh province on its political future could put Indonesia at risk.

In an interview with Reuters, Lee said of Aceh: "It is one of the most spiky, intractable problems facing the president."

"If they (Acehnese) do get a referendum and have independence, then I think Indonesia is at risk and that's understood, I think, by everybody and so nobody one wants that to happen," he said.

Lee added: "The worry for any president and anybody in the central government is that: Will special autonomy in Aceh lead to so many other special autonomies in so many other provinces that Indonesia will have quite a problem in coordinating all these semi-autonomous and very autonomous regions?"

Indonesia's own regional autonomy minister, Ryaas Rasyid, said this week the chances that Aceh could break away from Indonesia were "50-50."

Lee, a former prime minister, said Indonesia was far from the stability of the 32-year rule of former President Suharto, which no government could provide now.

INDONESIA IS FRACTURED, SAYS LEE

"Now you have an Indonesia which is fractured. Power is fractured. Opinions are fractured - fractured along ethnic, religious, ideological, sectional interest lines," he said.

He added that Singapore was committed to aiding Jakarta's recovery process.

"Many things can go wrong, but many things can go right and I think what have we got to do is to try and help it go right," Lee said.

Lee said he would accept a proposal from Wahid to serve on an international advisory group for Indonesia.

Wahid visited Singapore Saturday on the first stop of a regional tour that looked to build confidence in the new government and lure investment back to the country.

Lee said Wahid's comments in Singapore indicated his focus on key issues such as transparency, free markets and open competition that Indonesia must address.

"The impact was positive because he said all the things that needed to be said," Lee said. "There's no facet of the Indonesian problem which has eluded him."

"You've got so many forces at work, and no government can for a long, long time reestablish the conditions that it can be the same sort of stability and certainty that Suharto ensured."

SINGAPORE'S ROLE

Lee said Singapore would help build international investor confidence through efforts such as trade missions to Jakarta, which Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong would lead next year.

"If we begin to invest in enterprises in Indonesia, that will have a catalytic effect," Lee said.

Indonesia saw capital flight estimated at more than $30 billion in 1998. Lee said the Indonesian islands in proximity to Singapore -- Batam and Bintan -- could most directly gain from renewed activities. "The synergy is with the islands near us. The closer they are to us, the easier we can spread over ernment that anybody could have hoped for in Indonesia."