Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar (Bali) – What a difference a quarter makes. United States President Barack Obama, who spent two years in Indonesia as schoolboy Barry Soetoro, was first scheduled to visit Indonesia in March, but legislative obligations pushed the highly anticipated visit back to mid-June. Over the past 10 weeks, much has changed for both Obama and Indonesia, the world's third-largest democracy.
In March, Obama had the look of a loser. The US economy was still in the tank. Healthcare reform, Obama's major legislative initiative, seemed destined for defeat. The foiled Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner as it approached landing in Detroit, combined with the shootings of US Army personnel in Texas by a disturbed Muslim American officer, had created a narrative that the administration was soft on terrorism.
Rejectionist Republican opponents had gridlocked congress and seized control of the national debate, backed by the populist sloganeering of the "Tea Party" movement, indicating that a huge swing away from Obama's Democratic Party was likely in November's legislative elections.
As June approaches, Obama looks more like a winner, although the continuing BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could become a political disaster – or the opening for more effective corporate and environmental reforms. The US economy has begun producing jobs rather than losing them. Healthcare reform passed. In primary elections and other votes so far this year, the Tea Party's anti-government sentiment has proven as difficult for Republicans to handle as Democrats.
Sri you later
For Obama's Indonesian counterpart, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, things have turned for the worse. His candidate for the chairmanship of Indonesia's Democrat Party was defeated last weekend. He still has a gridlocked legislature bent on thwarting reform on behalf of entrenched business interests. His internationally respected Finance Minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, resigned early this month for a top job at the World Bank.
Mulyani had been the target of a concerted campaign to discredit her by the Golkar party, Yudhoyono's legislative coalition partner. As she departed for Washington, Mulyani pointed the finger for her departure at business tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of Golkar, the ruling vehicle for former president Suharto's 32-year military rule that ended in 1998. Bakrie is one of the many Suharto insiders who still dominate business and the military. In a recent Financial Times interview, Mulyani warned that reactionary business interests want to "hijack" reform. "It is a battle for Indonesia now," she said.
Meanwhile, a vocal minority pushing radical Islam outshouts a huge majority that favors a secular state but dares not speak against the religion. About 200 million of Indonesia's 240 million citizens follow Islam, giving it the world's largest Muslim population.
Since March, the terrorism issue has hit closer to home for both presidents. The plot to bomb New York's Times Square district, uncovered on May 1, led the administration to dismiss the director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair. However, even foiled plots leave Obama vulnerable to charges that he hasn't done enough to fight terrorism.
National Day massacre plot
In Indonesia, just two weeks after the Times Square incident, police uncovered a massive plot to attack national leaders at the August 17 National Day ceremonies, target foreigners, and, in the ensuing chaos, stage a coup that would impose Islamic law. According to officials, the plotting group was a faction of Jemaah Islamiyah that called itself al-Qaeda in Aceh, and may have ties to overseas terrorist organizations.
The two plots seemingly foreshadow a large anti-terrorism component to the upcoming presidential summit. The US can learn a lot from Indonesia, which has captured, tried and executed far more terrorists than the US, including the top operatives in the 2002 Bali bombing plot that killed 202 people, mainly foreign tourists. However, there are good reasons for caution about taking the anti-terrorism theme too far.
The official announcement of the foiled National Day attack plan came a month ahead of Obama's rescheduled visit. In February, a month ahead of the original date, Indonesian officials announced they had uncovered a terrorism camp in Aceh, the resource-rich far western province where Yudhoyono's first administration negotiated an end to a decades-long armed separatist civil war by offering limited autonomy, including a measure of Islamic law. The agreement came in 2005, after the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 weakened the military's dominance of the province.
Let's get normalized
In early March, Indonesian military officials stoked the rumor mill by saying that the US was ready to reinstitute aid to Kopassus, the Indonesian army's elite Special Forces unit. Kopassus has been blamed for a number of atrocities, including instigating the 1998 anti-Chinese riots in Jakarta. Those riots were thought to be designed to provide a pretext for a coup, particularly since the unit was then under the command of Suharto's former son-in-law Prabowo Subianto. Kopassus members also confessed to the 2001 murder of Papuan separatist leader Theys Eluway.
Ending the US ban on Kopassus funding would be the final step toward normalizing relations with the Indonesian military that were cut by the Bill Clinton administration in 1999. The George W Bush administration restored its training program for the rest of the Indonesian armed forces and arms sales after the 2004 tsunami. The US, along with Australia, also provides training and other aid to the National Police, including its Detachment 88 anti-terror squad.
But the Obama and Yudhoyono administrations may not rise to the terrorism bait. So far US officials visiting Indonesia to arrange the presidential trip – at least those whose presence has been made public – have focused on other issues, specifically human trafficking and improving the foreign investment climate. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said Indonesia needs more "smart diplomacy" that includes aid for education, exchange programs and other steps to improve human resources to help democracy succeed, as well as enhancing grassroots organizations that can trump extremism.
Not only in Bangkok...
The occupation and razing of parts of central Bangkok by anti-government protesters in Thailand highlights the danger to Indonesia, which has become in a dozen years the most functional democracy in Southeast Asia. Despite direct presidential elections and widely acknowledged free and fair elections for national and local offices, Indonesia's government remains largely dysfunctional.
Its judiciary is widely seen as dishonest, as highlighted by a plot unearthed last year between prosecutors, judges and business executives to frame leaders of the Corruption Eradication Commission. The culture of corruption pervades every level of government and many clearly see public service as a license to enrich themselves and family at the expense of the public. The Bangkok protests showed what can happen when the sense of disenfranchisement – we vote, but nothing changes; wealth grows, but we stay poor – is allowed to fester. Those sentiments animate the US Tea Party phenomenon and in Southeast Asia are often at the root of terrorism. The feeling that the few are cheating the many is widely felt throughout Southeast Asia, and especially in Indonesia, as acutely as it was in Thailand.
Those sentiments are also just as subject to manipulation by a Suharto-era business tycoon, radical imam, or would-be military national savior as they are by an ousted former Thai prime minister or half-term Alaska governor. For Obama and Yudhoyono, the challenge is to move effectively to counter those feelings of disenfranchisement through democratic means. Rather than more soldiers, guns and courage in battle, the war will be won with teachers, books and courage to reform.
[Longtime editor of award-winning investor rights advocate eRaider.com, Gary LaMoshihas written for Slate and Salon.com, and works an adviser to Writing Camp (www.writingcamp.net). He first visited Indonesia in 1994 and has tracking its progress ever since.]