Author: Hafiz Noor Shams

There was one time when I could see the Petronas Twin Towers clearly from my home in Kuala Lumpur. At the moment however, the view is kind of hazy, no thanks to Indonesia.

In ASEAN, there is a treaty known as Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (pdf). Basically, it encourages parties of the treaty to cooperate with each other in combating haze. As of August 2005, seven ASEAN members have ratified the agreement. They are Brunei, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It is, however too bad that none of the parties is a major contributor to the haze – the one prime source of this haze, Indonesia, has yet to ratify the treaty.

ASEAN members need to pressure Indonesia into signing this treaty. Forget about Myanmar’s progress towards democracy for awhile. I don’t think Malaysians and indeed Singaporeans should care for Myanmar if we all are going to choke ourselves to death with Indonesian smog. We should criticize Indonesia first and Myanmar second unless Myanmar somehow gets some sort of nuclear warhead from North Korea.

ASEAN politicians have praised Indonesia for reducing open burning in Sumatra. But surely, praise or no praise, Indonesia is not doing enough. ASEAN’s worst haze happened in 1998 and since then, several ASEAN members have themselves covered by smog yearly. More needs to be done and Indonesia’s ratification of the transboundary haze pollution treaty is a great jumpstart towards improving the air quality in Southeast Asia.

If Indonesia lacks the resources needed to implement enforcement against open burning, I’m sure Malaysia and Singapore and even Brunei could offer assistance in term of manpower and monetary aid.

If nothing could convince Indonesia to tie up its shoelaces, then Malaysia and Singapore should team up and invade Indonesia, divide Sumatra among themselves and solve this haze problem once and for all.

Or, we, about 25 million Malaysians plus a couple millions of Singaporeans could together take a deep breath and blow the haze towards Jakarta. Let’s see if they like their own shit.

Or the Malaysian government could build fat ass fans that could redirect the haze towards Jakarta. Or at least until all the haze reaches Singapore… err, I mean Indonesia.

God, this haze thing is driving me nut.

p/s – Oh, if you are reading this David, don’t let Monika read this. Else, the grand scheme to grab Sumatra would fail!

pp/s – I’m moving to a new host soon. So, please bookmark www.maddruid.com instead of my current url.