The silence of the Indonesians

Earlier this spring, it looked as if the Indonesian authorities were making an effort to raise awareness about H5N1 and to keep the rest of us informed about that effort. Komnas FBPI, the National Committee to Combat Bird Flu, launched a new bilingual blog: Bidang Komunikasi Komnas FBPI.

But as you'll see if you click through, the site hasn't been updated since April 23. Antara and The Jakarta Post seem to have dropped the flu story as well. The ministry of health posted a notice about the last human death, a 3-year-old, on April 30. It's been silent since then, at least about avian flu.

While the newshounds have toggletexted some Bahasa Indonesia reports about suspected cases (and deaths), the story seem to have evaporated from the English-language media.

This seems to me a very mistaken policy. If political action depends on fresh reports of dead toddlers, then no public-awareness campaign is going to succeed. And if Indonesia's public isn't aware, more toddlers (and adults) will die in the next wave of B2H cases.

Like justice, public-awareness campaigns must not only be done; they must be seen to be done.