A model by default from Lebanon

A model by default from Lebanon

By Chibli Mallat

BEIRUT, Lebanon (JP): Every other day brings in news of
another massacre in Indonesia, the latest being the killings in
the province of Aceh. In Lebanon, this sounds all too familiar,
as it does in the Balkans, Central Africa, or Ireland, at
different rhythms and on a different scale.

What do Lebanon and Indonesia have in common? The answer is
precisely this: fissiparous and violent trends in society, which
make countries implode. This may be accompanied by foreign
interventions involving neighboring or far-away powers which
either fan the flames by siding with a given minority, or find
their "peacekeeping" troops at war in the midst of chaos, another
word for the all too current trend of Lebanonization.

There are significant differences between the situation in
Lebanon between 1975 and 1990, and that of Indonesia after the
demise of the Soeharto dictatorship. The most important, however,
is historical.

Indonesia offers today the prodromes of what Lebanon was in
the mid 1970s: immense economic and social disparity,
uncontrolled political change, collapse of the rule of law,
militias taking over from the state, and the judiciary undermined
by inefficiency and the corruption of the executive branch.

This is why these significant differences offers opportunity
for Lebanon to "export" the lesson drawn from its harsh
experience. This lesson may forestall Indonesia's descent into
mayhem, as advocated by Omar Halim in a thoughtful piece in this
newspaper of May 30 2000 ("Avoid copying Lebanon's mistakes").

This descent seems inevitable in face of the looming horrors,
the country's dislocation along ethnic and sectarian lines, and
the flight of the educated elite and of international and local
investment, followed by a decade or so later by a slow licking of
the wounds and the painful piecing together of the puzzle.

The scales, naturally, are different. The Indonesian
archipelago consists of over 7,000 islands, some with
unparalleled density. Denys Lombard, the author of Le Carrefour
Javanais (Paris 1990), underlines at the outset of his three-
volume masterpiece the country's geographical importance.

The archipelago stretches over a surface equivalent to the
whole of Europe, from Iceland to Turkey. In addition, Indonesia
is the world's largest Muslim nation, with over 220 million
inhabitants, including dozens of ethnicities, religions, and
languages.

These characteristics mean that civil conflict is a constant
danger, and requires a high degree of statesmanship to avoid, as
could be observed in the repeated Dayak insurrection in
Kalimantan against the Madurese last month, and simmering
Acehnese separatism which resulted in the continuing killings.

So what can Lebanon offer as a model, if by default?

First, how does one support the moderate middle ground of
Indonesia against the warring extremes who find themselves, by
the sheer spiral of ethnic and sectarian violence, courted and
"respected?"

Secondly, how does one draw the line between legitimate socio-
economic and political grievances, for instance the indigenous
Dayaks who slowly found themselves marginalized and bereft of
their livelihood by "immigrants" from other islands, and who
respond with ethnic cleansing?

Or the Acehnese, who offered a little known but unique Muslim
tradition, underlined over 100 years ago by the great Dutch
Orientalist Snouck-Hurgronje, against Javanese who are accused of
taking away their oil and squeeze Acehnese natural resources
while ignoring their representation and their region's unique
Islamic legacy of jurisprudence?

Thirdly, how does one avoid the misuse of the army, which is
tagged as "a factor of stability," at a time when any army should
be kept away from assuming law and order because its role is to
defend the frontiers of the nation, and not get involved in
ethnic problems which its structure and mission are incapable of
confronting?

There are naturally, no copycat answers. Nor did Lebanon find
a definitive solution to any of these questions. It did, however,
provide a useful beginning.

Lesson one would be the strengthening of the moderates. How
does one support and vindicate the "Raymond Eddis" of Indonesia?
To date, Lebanon has failed to acknowledge formally that the one
national hero who was right throughout the civil war was Raymond
Eddi, who died in exile in Paris last year.

The fact that the most honest politician of the land remained
outside the country to his death will remain as the ultimate mark
of the failure of Lebanese politics to date. Indonesia must
cherish preserve and strengthen its honest, moderate, non-violent
Raymond Eddis.

Who are they, nationally and locally, and how is it possible
to make sure that the present rifts between the president, the
vice-president and the speaker remain at a level which does not
threaten the unity of the country?

Lesson two is to recognize the local and national problems,
and respond with formulas of autonomy and/or federalism, economic
and political, that involve the locals seriously and engage them
in their own affairs.

The gaping wound of south Lebanon over the 20th century has
still not been resolved, but the problem is at least recognized.
It is the misery of the South which made it prone in the 1960s
and 70s to become a festering wound for guerrilla wars, directed
towards Israel first, and then inwards.

And despite the withdrawal of Israel from the Occupied South
in May 2000, the region remains a worrying source for the
stability of the whole of Lebanon. Only a determined action at
state level, by reviving the region economically, and
establishing the rule of Lebanese law all the way to the borders,
will prevent the South from threatening the stability and welfare
of the country as a whole. In the same way, Indonesia must
prevent its regions from becoming Lebanese Souths.

Lesson three is that the strengthening of law and order cannot
operate by way of the army, and that the rule of law should be
assumed first by a competent and effective judiciary, which must
be made to oversee the police and the use of legitimate force.

Nor is this problem, despite the precedents of the Ahdab coup
of March 1976 and the Feb. 6, 1984 collapse, both instances in
which the army split asunder because of its ethnic composition,
recognized enough in Lebanon.

The army is not the solution in Indonesia, unless it comes to
support judicial mechanisms which are grounded in the basics of
the rule of law. This is arguably the most difficult dimension in
view of the continuing unrest. Accordingly, whether in Lebanon or
in Indonesia, some parameters are needed: the army needs to be
more professional, this means that the control of the civil
authorities must be paramount, especially the judiciary.

The army needs to be trained "judicially", and a crash program
at an institute like the Defense Institute of International Legal
Studies under the Department of Defense in the United States, or
even human rights organizations, would give the right signal.

It might also be useful to consider limited international
support for law and order, to prevent the need of a later massive
intervention to prevent mass ethnic genocide. The United Nations,
or friendly governments like America's, might be helpful in this
regard.

It is unfortunate that the Indonesian minister of foreign
affairs, who had been scheduled to be in Beirut last month, chose
at the last moment to change his plans. In addition to a welcome
support from a great Eastern nation to our struggling state, we
could have started reflecting in common on how "Lebanonization"
can be avoided for Indonesia, and whether that frightful
commonality can be "sold" or marketed intellectually to the many
countries going down the mayhem path, from Indonesia to Rwanda.
For sooner or later, with the rise of the massacres, the
international community will be called upon to do something in
Indonesia.

It is up to the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S. deputy
secretary of defense and former ambassador to Indonesia who wrote
an opinion piece last year in the Wall Street Journal, to chart
the course of the international response, rather than the
powerless Lebanese.

But an "anti-Lebanonization package" is needed for Indonesia,
which would save millions of lives.

Then of course, Lebanon must learn Indonesian lessons in
reverse, especially since the shadows of Lebanon's own history
still loom large over its future, from the rise of extremism, to
justified grievances of minorities and communities, to the misuse
of the army.

The writer, a professor who chairs European Law at Universite
Saint Joseph, is a lawyer at the Indonesian Embassy in Beirut.
His award-winning book, The Renewal of Islamic Law (Cambridge
1993) was recently translated into Indonesian. The above views
are personal.