Australia, Indonesia starting again

By Damien Kingsbury and Scott Burchill

SYDNEY (JP): As a consequence of Indonesia's slaughter of the civilian population of East Timor, Australia now faces its greatest diplomatic and defense crisis in living memory.

Three decades of work developing closer economic, political and defense ties in an effort to enhance the security and prosperity of both countries has been destroyed within one week. Australia now stands poised to commit troops to a territory which since 1985 both Canberra and Jakarta have regarded as legally belonging to the latter.

Australia's leadership of an imminent multilateral peacekeeping force in East Timor will completely change the fundamental basis of its bilateral relationship with Indonesia.

Perhaps what has most shocked Australians, at both a popular and elite level, is that despite guaranteeing security, the Indonesian Military (TNI) has actively engaged in a campaign of mass slaughter and social dislocation in East Timor.

This was initially undertaken by the so-called militias in East Timor, which were proxies established by the TNI following President Habibie's announcement earlier this year of a referendum on self-determination for the territory.

However, it had been clear for months that these militia were trained, led and supplied by TNI, while the police entrusted with maintaining law and order turned a blind eye to their atrocious behavior. Any pretense of the situation being otherwise was abandoned in the days following the announcement that the people of East Timor had overwhelmingly rejected Jakarta's offer of special autonomy within the Republic of Indonesia.

Chief among the TNI's reasons for its bloody response to the ballot is the Army's loss of face over the clear rejection of its 24 years of involvement in East Timor. East Timor is also being used as a lesson to other provinces considering independence, a policy which is linked to the TNI's self-proclaimed role in maintaining the unity of the state.

And finally, both TNI and Indonesia's political elites retain major economic interests in the territory, which they are loath to relinquish.

The actions of TNI in East Timor show that, following the upheavals associated with the resignation of president Soeharto, it is again a unified force intent on imposing its will in domestic politics. It also shows up the weakness of Habibie as President, reflecting TNI chief Gen. Wiranto's own "nationalist" vision for political development in Indonesia -- perhaps we are witnessing a replay of the events of 1957?

Such a vision appears to include the appointment of Megawati Soekarnoputri, head of the most popular party from the recent elections, as a figurehead president, with Wiranto exercising real political control.

Despite the spectacle of democratization in the June elections, the idea of a genuinely representative or reformist government in Indonesia clearly has shallow foundations. Reflecting the history and style of the major political players, Indonesia remains the political playground of its elites.

The country's political underdevelopment leaves little space for meaningful public participation in the political process, and does not welcome any regional assertions of separation.

Little has changed in Indonesia since the 1950s. Ordinary Indonesians remain excluded from political participation, while the unitary state, which is tightly controlled from the center, remains a precarious construction.

Separatist ambitions continue in Aceh, West Papua, Ambon, Riau and elsewhere -- even among some in Bali! By denying groups in the outer provinces any right to determine their own political destinies, the Javanese are ensuring that Indonesia remains a fragile entity.

The slaughter in East Timor also represents an enormous moral and strategic failure for Australia. Three decades of obsequious fawning and appeasement toward Jakarta have resulted in the complete collapse of Canberra's foreign and defense policy.

Closer military ties between Australia's armed forces and TNI, symbolized by joint training exercises and the secretly negotiated 1997 Australia-Indonesia Security Agreement, have given Australia no influence whatsoever -- civilizing or strategic -- over Indonesian security forces. Indonesia's generals are no longer acceptable partners in any security alliance, a situation unlikely to change until TNI forswears it's dual function and is firmly placed under civilian control.

The undue influence of the Jakarta lobby within the foreign affairs bureaucracy must also come to an end. By placing a premium on "stability" within the Indonesian archipelago and deeper economic relations with Jakarta, Canberra ignored the ethical implications of close ties with a repressive dictatorship.

The lobby's "big picture" meant ignoring Jakarta's human rights abuses and public concern about them, distorting the history of Soeharto's rise to power, and subjugating the legal rights of the East Timorese.

A normal bilateral relationship now depends on an honest review of this unfortunate history and the realization that political and territorial boundaries, even in this part of the world, are never immutable.

In any account of Australia's future regional relations, it will have to factor in dealing with what will soon become an independent East Timor. Australia will sometimes need to tread lightly in this new relationship for fear of confronting Indonesia, yet provide as much friendship and financial assistance as possible. Blood cannot be measured in dollars or goodwill, but the responsibility born of complicity is great.

Canberra will have an important role to play in brokering relations between a shattered East Timor and its suspicious giant neighbor. This will call on Australia's best diplomatic skills and, if handled poorly as in the past, could lead to further tragedy in East Timor, not to mention major problems between Australia and Indonesia.

Handled well, however, it could showcase the more sophisticated diplomacy Australia deployed in bringing to fruition the UN settlement of Cambodia's civil war.

It is clear that Australia's relationship with Indonesia has irrevocably changed. In steering a new direction, one based on honesty, realism and morality, Australia cannot afford to slip back into the sycophancy, appeasement and analytical poverty which characterized the last 25 years.

Dr. Damien Kingsbury is executive officer of the Monash Asia Institute. Dr. Scott Burchill is an expert on Australian foreign relations from the school of Australian and International Studies at Deakin University.