Australia's relations with Indonesia are at their lowest ebb since East Timor. The granting of temporary protection visas to 42 asylum seekers from Papua has outraged the central government in Jakarta, which fears that this is the first step towards an Australian-led push for independence for the restive province.
Despite the assurances of the Howard Government, which radically re-wrote Australian refugee policy in an attempt to assuage Jakarta's concerns, on Monday Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono delivered a blistering speech criticising Australia's actions.
Dr Yudhoyono demanded "concrete proof" that Australia respects Indonesia's territorial integrity, saying, "Don't insult us, don't toy with us and don't deny us justice". He also said it was impossible to both respect Indonesian sovereignty while at the same time granting asylum to Papuan independence seekers. Certainly a fair bit of Dr Yudhoyono's rhetoric is designed for domestic consumption, but the temperature of the invective is disturbing.
John Howard, for his part, has done his best to calm Jakarta's fears while defending the Immigration Department's granting of visas to the Papuans.
Yesterday, Mr Howard categorically ruled out an apology to Indonesia, saying that while he respects Jakarta's sensitivity on this matter, Jakarta must meanwhile respect Australia's own domestic processes and not expect them to change to suit foreign interests.
This is exactly right. Unfortunately, the Howard Government's attempt to calm Indonesian fears regarding future Papuan refugees by radically rewriting our commitment to the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention makes it that much harder to dissuade Jakarta of their ability to drive policy in Canberra.
Contrary to Dr Yudhoyono's assertions, there is no reason that the Australian Government cannot both support Indonesian territorial sovereignty while at the same time weighing the claims of Papuan asylum seekers on their individual merits. Australia accepts refugees and asylum seekers from around the world – some 13,178 such humanitarian visas were allocated in 2004-05 – and decides applicants' fate using established criteria. But accepting a refugee from a separatist region in another country does not mean the Government supports that refugee's dreams for his homeland.
Time and again, Canberra has asserted its support for Indonesian unity and democracy and a belief that Papuan independence would be the worst outcome for all concerned. As Paul Kelly points out on the opposite page, it is in Australia's interest to keep Indonesia together, especially in an age of international terrorism. And there is no way that granting asylum to 42 refugees could be construed as an attempt to pull the archipelago apart.
The ball is clearly in Indonesia's court right now. The air is already thick with words like "appeasement" and "kowtowing", and any further concessions by Mr Howard would bring back bad memories of Paul Keating's uncomfortably cozy relationship with Suharto.
In fact, the best way for Jakarta to eliminate the Papuan refugee problem would be to improve conditions in their eastern-most province. Jakarta could go a long way towards ameliorating many of the Papuans' grievances. Curtailing their transmigration program, which imports huge numbers of Javanese Muslims into a region that is Melanesian and Christian, as well as giving locals a bigger share of the proceeds from Papua's massive Freeport copper and gold mine, would be a good start.
So, too, would be repairing the failed 2001 autonomy program for Papua; here the example of Aceh, where a separatist movement was quelled by such a deal after the Boxing Day tsunami, provides a good roadmap. These are the messages top diplomat Michael L'Estrange must carry to Indonesia's Foreign Minister on Friday. In the meantime, having proved his nationalist bona fides at home, it is up to Dr Yudhoyono to improve his diplomacy overseas.