Why relations with Indonesia should be strengthened further

Editor, RE: “Rwandan envoy presents credentials in Indonesia” (The New Times, January 13). I have been to Indonesia—it’s a great country with friendly people. I need some friendly lesson in diplomacy vs economics here: Indonesia is a 240-million people market, they removed visa requirements for Rwandan nationals for a stay of not more than 30 days, why doesn’t Rwanda open an embassy there, and strengthen trade between the two nations? I was going to mention a few countries of no more than 15 million people where we have embassies yet they’re not as friendly as Indonesia, but I’ll reserve myself on that. Charles *** Better yet, why doesn’t Rwanda reciprocate Indonesia’s liberal visa policy and open the gate for Indonesian travelers? But, oh well, Rwanda imposes electronic visa to Indonesian visitors so I guess it won’t really do much because electronic visas usually are easy to secure. Every time an envoy, a minister, an important person from a foreign country comes to Indonesia I always have the hardest beating. I always hope that they will discuss liberalizing visa requirements for Indonesian as we all know Indonesia is pretty backwards in terms of travel freedom. I sincerely hope the whole world understands how friendly many Indonesians are. Traveling really does open up to a whole lot of opportunities and people learn tolerance by traveling. Learning from experiences, that’s what traveling is all about. Well, hopefully in the future the world will be more open. Azerbaijan and Belarus just recently opened up. The rest of the world should follow up. Indonesia did, get with the program. Eka Lee

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Why relations with Indonesia should be strengthened further