Sambutan Peresmian The Australia-Bali Memorial Eye Center

TRANSCRIPT
REMARKS
H.E. DR. SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA
AT THE
OPENING CEREMONY OF
THE AUSTRALIA-BALI MEMORIAL EYE CENTRE
DENPASAR, 27 JULY 2007



Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,
Om Swastiastu,

Honorable Prime Minister of Australia John Howard and Mrs. Janette Howard,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to be here with my good friend Prime Minister John Howard on this beautiful day to inaugurate the Australia-Bali Memorial Eye Centre.

This Eye Centre is a fitting tribute in memory of our brothers and sisters who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on 12 October 2002.

Today, the terrorists who are responsible for such monstrous crimes have been captured, tried and put behind bars. They have utterly failed to advance their misguided cause of hatred.

Indeed, what prevails today, here in Bali and throughout Indonesia, is the magnificent force of the human spirit: the spirit of hope, the spirit of love, the spirit of humanity, and the spirit of friendship.

Everyday since that fateful day of 12 October 2002, we have found a million ways to honor and celebrate that spirit of goodness. This wonderful Eye Memorial that we are opening today is a towering example of that. This Eye Centre is also a monument of the enduring and growing friendship between the Governments and people of Indonesia and Australia.

When Prime Minister John Howard and I declared the Comprehensive Partnership between our countries 2 years ago in Canberra, we understood very clearly that for it to be strong, this partnership needed to be built at the grassroots level, it has to bring real benefits, and it has to be relevant to the daily lives of our people. It is therefore only fitting that this Eye Memorial is built in the island of Bali.

It is here in Bali that tens of thousands of Australians come to work, study, rest, surf, and play each year. Many Australians have genuine affinity and attachment to Bali. And the Balinese have always been happy to welcome Australians as part of their community.

It has escaped media attention that there are many Australian citizens who are involved in charitable work for Indonesia.

This is why I know that the hard work John Fawcett does to develop this Eye Memorial comes from his heart, from his love for the island and the people he befriended when he first came here in the 1980’s.

I speak on behalf of the people in Bali in expressing their gratitude to the John Fawcett Foundation and Yayasan Kemanusiaan Indonesia, and of course to the Government of Australia, for making this Eye Centre a reality. It is my hope that the Community Eye Treatment Centre, despite its modest beginnings, will be one of the most advanced in Indonesia.

No doubt, you will have plenty of visitors here: as Governor Dewa Beratha said just now, over 50,000 Balinese are said to be affected by blindness, especially cataract blindness. If they cannot find you, or if they are too far away or too poor to travel, I am pleased to learn that the center will have 2 mobile outreach clinics to find those with eye problems.

I trust that this Eye Center will work closely with the Bali Provincial Department of Health to achieve our common objectives to help our people. The fact that Eye center and the Department of Health are physically situated side-by-side in this block will make it very easy for them to coordinate and cooperate.

This project fits perfectly into the utmost priority which my Government attaches to the health sector. The health sector is in the top 5 sectors receiving the largest portion of national budget, and this year we are nominally spending more on the health sector than at any other time in Indonesia’s history.

Through our combined efforts, we can all push Bali into the forefront of eradication of cataract blindness, and put Bali on the fast track to reaching the goals of Vision 2020, the worldwide goal set by the World Health Organization of eliminating avoidable blindness in the next 13 years.

This Australia Bali Eye Center therefore is not a statue; it is a working and living memorial.

I wish you all the best in your noble work, and I thank you for reminding us all that life is beautiful, and worth seeing.




I thank you.

*****


Bureau for Press and Media Affairs
Presidential Household