Megawati's warning show courage and vulnerability<\/p>\n
The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore<\/p>\n
President Megawati Soekarnoputri showed courage -- and
\nunderlined her own vulnerability -- when she warned Indonesians
\ntheir country risked breaking up if they continued to accentuate
\nregional, ethnic and religious differences.<\/p>\n
She said this not once, but twice, in as many days -- on
\nSunday and again on Monday. It is unusual for an Indonesian
\nleader to raise the specter of fragmentation, not at a time when
\nthe probability remains, although the danger has receded with the
\nend three months ago of Abdurrahman Wahid's wayward presidency.<\/p>\n
The separatist sentiment in troubled regions such as Aceh,
\nRiau and Papua would be hard to douse but, militarily, even rebel
\nforces seem to have had their attention diverted over the
\nAmerican-led anti-terrorism campaign. If intra-national conflicts
\ncontinued, she said on Sunday, \"you can be sure we as a nation
\nwill soon perish\".<\/p>\n
Why did the President even mention the dreaded subject of
\nBalkanisation? It could not possibly help her or her government,
\nas her opponents have been probing for weaknesses in her
\npresidency.<\/p>\n
Megawati is a nationalist at heart, yet realistic enough to
\nacknowledge that the legacy of her father, the republic's
\nfounding president Sukarno, is not fully secure yet a half
\ncentury later.<\/p>\n
The choice of Sunday's event at which she issued the warning
\nof splintering was, perhaps, deliberate.<\/p>\n
This was to commemorate Youth Pledge Day, a historic pledge to
\nbuild a united nation made by young people from all over
\nIndonesia on Oct. 28, 1928.<\/p>\n
Indonesia was then under Dutch rule, but that pledge had a
\ndeeply symbolic role in the independence struggle which was to
\nreach fruition 17 years later.<\/p>\n
Her father was at that pledge-taking. Megawati, it is clear,
\nalso has an eye for theater. After the Sunday appearance, her
\nreiteration of the Balkanisation warning Monday showed what her
\nreal concerns were.<\/p>\n
This time, her platform was a meeting of governors and heads
\nof regions and municipalities to discuss development priorities.<\/p>\n
If each region pushed its own agenda of tribal and religious
\ndivisions at the expense of national interest, she said, the
\ncountry would disintegrate like the former Yugoslavia. \"As we can
\nsee in the Balkans, the standard of living in the new states
\nbased on those narrow concepts turned out to be no better
\ncompared to when they were within a greater national union,\" she
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
The weaknesses of her governance are most apparent here:
\ncorruption, loss of respect for the law, administrative inertia
\nand the flight of private and foreign investment.<\/p>\n
But her plea for national cohesion is powerful, in that she
\nhas presented to her people the stark choice between regionalism
\nand the national good.<\/p>\n
Today is President Megawati's 100th day in office.<\/p>\n
She has no more succeeded in addressing those shortcomings
\nthan her predecessor did in his entire tenure. But she has time
\non her side.<\/p>\n
This she should put to use by exercising leadership in a way
\nAbdurrahman never could or did.<\/p>\n
She showed she is capable of that by holding the line between
\nsupport for the American campaign against terror and keeping a
\nlid on internal opposition to the bombing of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 14, she made the famous remark that \"blood cannot be
\ncleansed with blood\", while calling for the punishment of
\nterrorists.<\/p>\n
The ambivalence is understandable.<\/p>\n
She has an enormously difficult job of ensuring that her
\nstrategy of containing the opposition works.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, if investors stay clear indefinitely, her weekend
\nwarnings would resonate.<\/p>",
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