A nation at the crossroads

It has been just a little over a month since President Abdurrahman Wahid assumed office, but the peril of disintegration, which has long been quietly smoldering beneath Indonesia's fertile soil, appears to be increasing by the day. It is now posing one of the most awkward complications to this country's first democratically elected government since 1955.

The seeds of dissent and separatism were planted by a succession of administrations and nourished during the last three decades by corruption-ridden authoritarian central governments in Jakarta. Those seeds have not only taken root, but in several places the dissent has developed into stubborn shoots, which are proving to be difficult to uproot.

This is true for Irian Jaya, Riau and other regions of Indonesia. But nowhere has the problem become so vexing and so representative of the spirit of mutiny against Jakarta's domination as in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh. Ironically, this province was one of the strongest supporters of Indonesian independence under Jakarta's leadership during the 1945 to 1949 war against the Dutch.

It has been argued that a perceived injustice in the distribution of the national wealth lies at the heart of the current local rebellions against Jakarta's centralist policies. Up to a certain point, this contention is true. This explains why the most vocal demands for independence, or at least for wide- ranging autonomy, are currently heard in regions rich in natural resources, such as Aceh and Riau.

The explanation, however, provides just one part of the story. Indonesia is one of the world's most diverse countries, whether that be in terms of resource distribution, material progress, culture, religion, language, or customs and traditions.

One of the outstanding achievements of the leaders of Indonesia's independence movement was to mold in the late 1920s all the diverse components living and existing in what was then the Netherlands East Indies, into one unified whole under the well known motto: one country, one nation, one language -- Indonesia.

Remarkable as that achievement may be, it has been made clear that Indonesia's unity is not something that can be taken for granted, but is something that requires hard work. It was created by individuals and obviously must take the nation's effort to maintain. This crucial reality, which previous governments failed to recognize, has led to disastrous consequences.

The unenviable task of picking up the pieces after the devastation left behind by his predecessors rests with the present government of President Abdurrahman Wahid. This could have been a much easier task -- or at least less of a dilemma -- to accomplish if Abdurrahman possessed the same authoritarian powers which his predecessors freely resorted to using.

As it is, the President will have to carefully weigh how he goes about resolving the crisis, lest he risk losing some of his credibility. Assuming that a popular referendum is what the majority of people want in Aceh and Irian Jaya, and perhaps to a lesser extent also in Riau, holding one would clearly be the only democratic way out of the problem.

After the trauma of East Timor however, the mounting objections currently heard in Jakarta to this eventuality are easy enough to understand. After East Timor, any further loss -- of Aceh, and possibly Irian Jaya, Riau and other resource-rich provinces -- would be certain to generate outright rejection in the rest of Indonesia that could, at its worst, end in the fragmentation of the country. Such a scenario is certain to scare not only the majority of Indonesians, but governments and political observers throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Additionally, it would mean a considerable increase in the potential for trouble and conflict in the region.

As the situation currently stands, a possible way out that could be acceptable to all parties involved would be to work toward granting real and wide-ranging autonomy to the various regions of Indonesia. This strategy takes into account the reality that federalism is still a dirty word to many Indonesians, in particular the military.

That problem, however, must be put on hold. The absolute prerequisite for making such a settlement even possible to resolve with absolute fairness, is to, for once and for all, pursue outstanding cases of human rights abuses and injustices wherever they exist in this country. Unless this action is carried out, it will be disheartening to think about the future of this nation, which our predecessors built at the cost of so much blood and tears.