Nugroho added that while the haze can indeed be considered a crime against humanity, he noted that now is not the time to point fingers.
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Amnesty global US said in a statement it hopes Obama will also confront Widodo about Indonesia’s human rights record.
Silicon Valley has become a destination as indispensable as the White House for a few foreign heads of state, but Indonesian President Joko Widodo has cut short his trip to respond to disaster back home.
Philippines should initiate moves to invoke the 2002 ASEAN Agreement of Transboundary Haze Agreement and demand compensation from Indonesia for the air pollution its forest fire had triggered. This in turn changes local ecosystems and pushes species into extinction.
The White House says Obama, who lived in Indonesia for almost five years as a child, would also discuss defense and maritime issues.
President Widodo finalized more than $20 billion worth of USA deals during his trip, including a $500 million infrastructure investment from Coca-Cola and up to $1 billion from General Electric for Indonesia’s energy and healthcare sectors, according to the Indonesian embassy in Washington.
Indonesia has accepted help from Singapore, Australia and now US$2.75 million from the U.S. – yet the fires are out of control.
As the Indonesian Council of Ulema has held mass prayers for rain, the administration of President Joko Widodo has deployed 30 aircraft and 22,000 troops to fight the fires on the ground, as well as stationed several warships off Kalimantan, on standby to evacuate victims if required.
Thick smoke from a peatland fire in the Ogan Ilir district in Palembang, South Sumatra, earlier this month.
Indonesia is considering declaring a national emergency over fires that have been smouldering across the archipelago for weeks, sending haze drifting across much of Southeast Asia, the vice president said on Tuesday.
Thousands of fires caused by slash-and-burn agriculture in Indonesia have forced schools and offices to close and airlines to cancel flights.
The number of fires as well as the greenhouse gas emissions from those blazes have now surpassed 2006. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and largely moderate.
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Studies have estimated that forest and peat fires that burn each year across Southeast Asia are responsible for about 110,000 premature deaths per year across the region. This year, the toll may already be far higher than that.
