Ali Alatas looks back on 11 years of Indonesia's foreign policy

Ali Alatas looks back on 11 years of Indonesia's foreign policy

Ali Alatas, Indonesia's longest serving foreign minister,
oversaw the country's foreign policy at the height of its
activism. In the last days of his tenure last month, he spoke to
The Jakarta Post reporters Meidyatama Suryodiningrat and
Kornelius Purba about his experiences, the future and, of course,
the pebble in his shoe -- East Timor. Alatas formally hands over
his post to Alwi Shihab Tuesday.

JAKARTA (JP): Charmingly eloquent and meticulous in his every
move, Ali Alatas loyally served at the forefront of Indonesian
diplomacy for well over two decades.

One of the best known Indonesians both at home and abroad, he
served as foreign minister beginning with the Fifth Development
Cabinet in 1988. He was officially replaced last Friday by Alwi
Shihab.

As he exits the arena of Indonesian diplomacy, he leaves an
enduring example for his successors to follow.

Only days before the election of a new government, Alatas
coyly indicated his impending desire to "gracefully retire".

"I believe this is a good time to think about not exactly
retirement, but to do something else that will benefit to me and
hopefully also to Indonesian society," he said.

For most, the first thing that comes to mind for such a
distinguished, accomplished man would be a memoir. Alatas loathes
the suggestion.

"Frankly, I don't like the idea of writing a memoir. I never
like the idea of presenting to the public what I did when I was
still six years old, or what I did when I was 15 years old." He
added it was "the highest arrogance to think that people are
interested in this kind of nonsense".

Such exercises, he said, were only for "very important
people".

He believed he could provide a valuable contribution by
recounting his experiences in negotiating a solution to the
Cambodian strife, the unrest in the southern Philippines and of
course East Timor.

A born and bred Jakartan, Alatas initially wanted to be a
lawyer. However, his first start was in journalism in the early
1950s.

He graduated from the Foreign Affairs Academy in 1954 and two
years later earned a law degree from the University of Indonesia.

Those who know Alex, his nickname, can testify to his work
ethic and achievements. A heart attack several years ago forced
him to slow his pace somewhat, but did nothing to affect his
vigor.

Always careful to choose his words, Alatas is known for being
methodical in his craft; he can sometimes be seen dissecting
texts in a lawyer-like fashion.

Not surprisingly he seemed to go against the age-old adage
that the task of a diplomat is to lie for his country.

"I see it as our task not only as a foreign minister but as
the ministry as a whole to be able to explain to the outside
world the true proportion of an issue, the facts of an issue, and
to point out a misrepresentation.

"If there is misrepresentation, not to lie, or not to say that
something is white or black. I never believe in making such kind
of statements because you will be caught at one point," he said.

It was during his tenure that Indonesia reached the peak of
its diplomatic activeness, with the resumption of diplomatic ties
with China, the Cambodia issue and resolving the conflict in
southern Philippines a few of the highlights.

Barely a week into his tenure, Alatas was already making
historic steps to thaw frosty ties with Beijing which were
severed since the late 1960s.

Indonesia at the time was to host the 1988 ESCAP annual
meeting which was also attended by the Chinese deputy foreign
minister.

With the full permission of then president Soeharto, he seized
the opportunity to break diplomatic ground.

"Two of my predecessors had tried to resolve it, Pak Adam
Malik, Pak Mochtar, they never got anywhere. But I was lucky that
just a few days before, I think, Pak Harto made a statement about
China that many people saw as an opening. So I seized this
opportunity," Alatas recounted.

Another topic close to Alatas' heart is the resolution of
hostilities in Cambodia.

Alatas took over the initiative started by his predecessor
Mochtar Kusumaatmadja. He developed Mochtar's initiatives into
the Jakarta Informal Meetings which were the precursor of the
Paris peace talks.

The methods of including both a major international power and
a regional developing state as peacemaker became a diplomatic
hallmark.

"When it became bigger, France came into the picture, and
wanted to resolve the problem too," Alatas recalled with a smile.

While he could proudly run off a list of his and Indonesia's
finest hours in the past decade, it was not difficult to guess
which problem he considered the most frustrating.

"By all means it is a solution to the East Timor problem.
Although it was an international problem, but it was our problem
in our national sphere," he said of the issue often described as
the pebble in his shoe.

Perhaps East Timor was more of an albatross.

As foreign minister, Alatas has had to almost single-handedly
shoulder the duty of towing the government line in the former
Portuguese province and defending it against international
condemnation.

While his patience is renowned, it is understandable that he
may at times have launched tirades against Indonesia's
detractors.

While he refused to point fingers, it was obvious that much of
the angst stemmed from the fact that developments within East
Timor itself were beyond the power of the foreign ministry.

"I must admit that sometimes I became very frustrated at the
slow pace in which we could move and the setbacks that sometimes
happened, completely out of the control of the department of
foreign affairs ... Being an issue that proceeded in the national
context, other people decide what is happening in East Timor, not
the foreign ministry."

Slowly but surely, Alatas used his diplomatic savvy to turn
opposition against Indonesia's integration of the territory into
acceptance.

No resolutions against East Timor were passed during his
tenure and international organizations such as the Non-Aligned
Movement all but left the issue on the back burner.

"Our negotiations actually were showing signs of, if not total
success, were showing signs of going toward a solution," he said.

Both in 1986 and 1991 during tripartite talks it was Portugal
which backpedaled when it repeatedly rejected new initiatives by
the UN secretary-general.

"We were on top of the situation, not Portugal, at that time.
We at that time could show to the world, look we wanted to solve
the problem. Who is afraid of the solution? Portugal!"

Then came the tragic Santa Cruz incident on Nov. 12, 1991.

"From that time, the East Timor issue became a human rights
issue, rather than a political issue ... Now it became a human
rights problem, a humanitarian problem, a problem the world
perceived as the cruel attitude of the Indonesian nation against
a small people who want independence," Alatas said.

"It was not only a setback, it turned to an issue that was
quite attractive to our enemies, to our opponents who were making
the most of it. I think since 1991 onward, our efforts went down
progressively.

"And we even had the bizarre experience of having to see a man
like Ramos Horta win the Nobel Peace Prize while he has never
propagated peace."

One can only guess his inner thoughts when President B.J.
Habibie made an about-turn in January and hastily decided to
allow a ballot which gave East Timor the option to separate.

There continues to be much speculation about why the
government in the end opted for such a drastic shift and whether
Alatas was fully consulted prior to it being brought to the
Cabinet.

Loyal bureaucrat that he is, Alatas refused to show, in public
at least, disappointment over the decision.

"We came up with the proposal that was, in itself, already
quite revolutionary because in the past I never could get the
idea accepted by Pak Harto, namely the middle-way solution (wide-
ranging autonomy)."

He recited how the proposal for wide-ranging autonomy in mid-
1998 was initially well-received and even drew praise from the UN
secretary-general.

"We started negotiations, but then we were attacked, we were
criticized by East Timorese who are against us, also by certain
NGOs and certain governments, saying your proposal is not enough,
they will never accept it.

"Or they'd say that it is only acceptable if after five years
to 10 years you still give them a referendum. You give them your
wide-ranging autonomy, you give them all these things, you
continue to pay for them, and after five to 10 years they'd still
have the opportunity to say goodbye and thank you very much.

"It was no wonder that Pak Habibie then said that maybe we
need an alternative. If our proposal is indeed unacceptable, I am
not going to give alternatives in which they ask five to 10 years
and then a referendum. Our proposal was that if they reject it,
then let's pack and leave. Everybody was shocked, but that was
the idea of the best solution."

In the end the monumental decision was possibly taken in
haste, from sheer frustration by those unaccustomed to the strain
of international acrimony.

"The outside world should have had the wisdom at that time not
to continue Indonesia-bashing. They continued to heckle us, to
say this is not enough, too little too late and so on. We became
very frustrated, you know, especially those who are not used to
facing East Timor. I was used to facing East Timor in the last 23
years.

"You may have criticism of the proposal being too premature,
too fast. Don't ask my personal opinion on that. In the end it
became the position of the Cabinet, the whole Cabinet."

When asked whether he initially advised the president against
the idea, Alatas responded: "Well, I have advised, among other
things, OK we can solve it, but isn't it premature? ... But after
that in a very democratic manner we discussed that in the Cabinet
and it became a Cabinet issue."

Alatas also shed some light on the letter sent by Australian
Prime Minister John Howard in December 1998 in which Australia
for the first time formally expressed its readiness to accept an
independent East Timor.

"The role is that it maybe made Pak Habibie irritated, that is
the role. The Australians think that the letter was good,
something that worked in the right direction, but totally
different. It made Pak Habibie mad, it made Pak Habibie angry,
because it came from Australia. Why should Australia get
involved?"

According to Alatas, the overwhelming defeat in the Aug. 30
popular consultation and the ensuing violence came as a shock to
the government.

"Up to the balloting, the report we got from our own people,
of the prointegration people, including Lopez da Cruz, and so on,
is that we were going to win."

Alatas admitted that he had some doubts about the positive
reports.

"We told them already at that time 'are you sure?' Because I
said, for example, to them, how can you win if you continue
intimidating the people? Eurico Guterres and so on, I said, you
see, if you continue to intimidate them, they will hate you. In
front of you they may be afraid, they will bow their head, and if
you say raise a red-and-white Indonesian flag they will do it.
However, once in the booth, they will go against you, I told
them."

Once the result was announced, it "shocked us", Alatas
admitted.

"They always reported that we were going to win. So they too
were shocked, maybe ashamed. They claimed there are a lot of
violations (during the ballot). There were violations but not to
the point that you can change 78 to 22 percent."

Things only got worse for Indonesia as the violence erupted.

"It shocked the world, it shocked us too frankly. Because
certainly at the department of foreign affairs, we were shocked.
Why should they come like that, and why it was not stopped
immediately?"

Reflecting Indonesia's current plight in which so much
international ire has been directed its way, Alatas remarked that
it was a victim of a combination of bad publicity and the
country's own doing.

"Frankly speaking, much of the negative reporting and the
negative image we have received the last few weeks, in the last
few months, much of it, was caused by our own actions, was caused
by some of the things we did."

He was also quick to add that Indonesia's purported terrible
actions were woven in untruths.

"Many of the things have been exaggerated, that has been shown
now. Even the most critical Western press are now acknowledging
that there has been too much exaggeration.

"It created some image, and that is why instead of being
recognized for the positive things that we did, in a search of a
democratic and just solution to East Timor problems, we have been
criticized."

With Alatas no longer at the helm of Indonesia's foreign
policy, it is not too much to expect that he would now become
its' most astute observer. But again he humbly showed reluctance
at the prospect of preaching to the new government.

His fundamental hope was for Indonesia to remain faithful to
the founding principles which have guided national foreign policy
thus far.

"I do not arrogate myself to tell the next government what the
foreign policy should be. However all I can say is that our
foreign policy has always being governed by certain basic
principles," he said.

"Our foreign policy is always a principled foreign policy, and
not an expeditious one, not a quality of expedience tending with
the wind or just for the sake of short-term gain, sacrificing
basic principles. And I hope that our foreign policy will
continue to be a principled one.

"For example, our policy on Israel, is a policy which is based
on principle. It is nothing against the Israeli people, we have
nothing against the Jewish state, we are willing to have certain
limited contact with them, but as far as diplomatic relations
with it is concerned, it is based on the principle that they
first have to undo what they are doing to the Palestinians and to
the Arabs, and that is part of our anticolonialist policy, as
stipulated in the 1945 Constitution.

"So to any new government, all I can hope is that we will
remain to be a country known to be a principled foreign policy
rather than for foreign policy based on expedience and short term
gain. But for the rest, I cannot arrogate to tell them what to
do."

He leaves his post amid soured relations between Indonesia and
Australia.

"We have come full circle, and we are back at square one," he
said.

He recounted that when he came into office in 1988, one of his
first tasks was to improve the strained relations between the two
countries.

"We came very far, but now we are back to the same point, at
the very low relationship."

He remained optimistic that once the dust settled, both
countries would realize that they have long-term interests and
that preserving the relationship was mutually beneficial.

"However, I don't know how long it will take. Unfortunately,
some of the things that I thought we had achieved turned out to
be artificial, like I thought Australia, and the Australian
government, were sincere in positioning themselves closer to Asia
rather than seeing themselves as a European outpost in an Asian
environment."

Touching on future relations with East Timor now that the
former Indonesian province is on its way to statehood, Alatas
expressed hope that it they would be harmonious.

"But let me say without any pretension or arrogance that it
will in the first place depend on East Timor realizing, rather
than Indonesia, that it should maintain a good relationship
because otherwise if by their statement, if by their policy, they
think they can ignore Indonesia, then it will be very difficult
relationship because of proximity," he warned.

When asked about the prospect of the 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) embracing an independent East
Timor as a member, Alatas retorted that it should be the other
way round.

"It is not for ASEAN to embrace East Timor but for East Timor
to think what it should do about ASEAN, what its positioning
should be to ASEAN."

Retracing the diplomatic career of a man like Alatas, one
sometimes cannot help but feel sorry that such distinction is
tainted by a single issue which was not of his own doing.

Through the endless unavailing negotiations and countless
international recriminations, Alatas kept his composure. He
attributed his cool exterior to years of diplomatic training.

While he professed not to bear grudges against his diplomatic
opponents and critics, a tingling question remains.

What would his greeting be if Ramos Horta visited as East
Timor's foreign minister?

With a quick smile and his famed diplomatic skills in full
force, Alatas replied: "Practically speaking, it would not come
to that because I won't be foreign minister."