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The dangers of kowtowing to Indonesia

Source
Sydney Morning Herald - November 5, 2000

Brian Toohey – Indonesia is playing an ugly and dangerous game. Once again, Australian policy makers are only encouraging even worse behaviour further down the track by falling over themselves to make excuses for the Indonesians.

In the past month, Indonesian patrol boats have challenged a US destroyer delivering aid to East Timor; mobs have tried to force American guests from hotels in Solo; the Foreign Minister has made light of death threats against the US ambassador; senior politicians have hailed a murderous militia thug as a hero and the Governor of Bali has made it plain that Australian tourists are not welcome.

In what can only be interpreted as a calculated snub, the Indonesian Government also cancelled at the last minute the visit of a top-level ministerial delegation to Canberra. At the same time, it expected Australia to stop last week's South Pacific Forum in Kiribati from even mentioning the brutal behaviour of the Indonesian military in West Papua. A couple of weeks earlier it successfully demanded Australian support for more than $9 billion in aid from the international community.

The response has echoes of the shambolic Sukarno era in the 1950s and early 60s when accusations about "Western imperialism" were used to distract attention from domestic chaos. Already, badly needed tourist and investment dollars are at risk.

Ultimately, the invective could generate a dangerous campaign of military harassment against neighbouring countries such as Papua New Guinea and Australia, as well as East Timor. The US ambassador Robert Gelbard has come under fire for speaking out on issues such as continuing corruption and the failure to disarm the militia in West Timor.

Although regarded as lacking in finesse, Gelbard has every right to object to recent Indonesian conduct. Why, for example, should he mutely accept the Indonesian Navy's claims that it challenged the destroyer, USS O'Brien, two weeks ago because it believed it was delivering arms to the troubled island of Ambon?

Unless Indonesian naval authorities are completely deluded they must realise the claim is palpable nonsense. If anyone is delivering arms to stir up religious violence on Ambon, it is groups associated with the Indonesian military – as President Wahid has complained.

Gelbard is not the only observer who can be excused for wondering what message Jakarta's governing elite is really trying to convey after it heaped praise on vicious militia leader Eurico Guterres.

Following a UN demand for Guterres to be extradited on charges relating to crimes against humanity in East Timor, Indonesian police arrested him on minor weapons charges last month. He was promptly visited in a Jakarta jail by six members of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. Committee chairman Yasril Ananta Baharuddin said the parliamentarians regarded Guterres as a "brave patriot" and a "hero".

The influential chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly, Amien Rais, also lent his support while a spokesman for national police chief General Suroyo Bimantoro said Guterres had "rendered a service for the State".

The comments suggest many members of Indonesia's ruling elite (with the commendable exception of President Wahid) refuse to accept that their country did anything wrong in East Timor. The disturbing message is that the Indonesian elite is happy to condone paramilitary efforts to undermine East Timor's independence.

While support for violent repression prevails, there would seem little prospect of a peaceful accommodation with secessionists in provinces such as Aceh and West Papua. (Although one Australian commentator last week berated the Defence Department for "mistakenly" referring to the province as West Papua rather than Irian Jaya, President Wahid agreed to the name change in January).

Prime Minister John Howard came under strong pressure from Jakarta – and its usual apologists within Australia – to prevent last week's meeting of South Pacific Forum leaders from even mentioning Indonesian repression in West Papua. Just how he was supposed to bully other forum leaders into shutting up is not clear. But he did repeat publicly that Australia regarded West Papua as part of Indonesia.

How long this position can be maintained largely depends on whether the Indonesians abandon violence as the solution to dissent. Indonesia took over West Papua from the Dutch colonialists in the early 1960s without allowing a proper act of self-determination.

Rather than try to get the Melanesian population onside, Indonesia has opted for a policy of brutal repression. Until this changes, international support for a genuine act of free choice in West Papua will only grow.

At this stage, Indonesia looks like responding to justified criticism with increased belligerence. The Australian reaction will require a great deal of forbearance for the sake of good long-term relations with a neighbour. But there is no need to be trampled over. While little would have been gained, for example, by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer publicly saying he was tired of being jerked around, there was no need for him to have been so effusive in expressing his understanding of why the Indonesian ministerial delegation abruptly cancelled last month's visit to Australia.

Compared with how the situation could deteriorate, this particular snub is a minor issue. But nothing should be done to encourage the Indonesian elite to believe it pays to blame foreigners for its own shortcomings. Nor should we seek the elite's approval by expressing vigorous opposition to the break-up of Indonesia.

The disintegration of the empire may be the best thing for the people of the archipelago. As Queensland University historian Robert Cribb has argued, the Javanese could be the big winners from letting go of other unhappy islands inherited from the Dutch.

Australia has little to gain from trying to curry favour in Jakarta by insisting that the Javanese empire should last forever. The Russian empire – the Soviet Union – has disappeared with few regrets. The same thing could easily happen to Indonesia, leaving a generation of Australian policy makers high and dry.

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