Blast signals maturity in Australia-Indonesia ties

Blast signals maturity in Australia-Indonesia ties

Michael Christie, Reuters, Sydney

Australia's often testy ties with its giant Muslim neighbor Indonesia have entered a new and finely balanced phase as dozens of Australian police and agents roam Bali in the aftermath of the bomb attacks on tourists.

Jakarta's apparent resolve to finally take on Islamic extremists and its decision to allow Australian police some clout in the Bali investigations could herald a new era of cooperation in relations long marked by mistrust, analysts said on Friday.

But Canberra must take care to ensure that its determination to hunt down the killers of 184 people -- 114 of whom are feared to be Australian -- does not aggravate suspicion in Indonesia about Australia's motives since it led a UN force into East Timor.

"It is a fine line that is being trod here by Australia, but also by Indonesia," said Alan Dupont, of the Asia Pacific Security Program at the Australian National University.

"Literally every practical measure that's taken has the potential to ruffle feathers in Indonesia if it's not handled sensitively," he said.

The government of Prime Minister John Howard faces intense demands in Australia to bring to justice the perpetrators of the attacks on nightclubs packed with revelers at Bali's Kuta Beach. But there is only so much Australia can do alone.

"However difficult it is, we can't invade the place, we can't just take it over, we have to work with the locals," Howard said in a Sydney radio interview this week.

So far Indonesia has responded with proposed anti-terrorism laws -- a heartening development for Washington and Canberra which had been pressing the world's most populous Muslim country in vain to play a more vigorous role in the "war on terrorism".

Howard has been at pains to praise President Megawati Soekarnoputri, who a year ago refused to take his calls.

But his government has also made its resolve clear, sending two ministers, teams of federal police, counter-terrorism agents and forensics experts to Indonesia in the immediate aftermath. Howard himself went to Bali on Thursday.

"There is considerable pressure on the government at the moment to be seen to be doing something," said Michael van Langenberg, a Southeast Asian specialist at Sydney University. "And I think there is a lot of pressure put on Jakarta to permit that to happen."

Analysts said the low-key but unrelenting pressure on Indonesia marks a final departure from what they call a "good relations at all cost" policy that previously muzzled Australian government criticism of Jakarta.

Apart from some "megaphone" diplomacy over boatpeople, when Howard lashed out at Indonesia's unwillingness to halt people smuggling in remarks many analysts attribute to domestic politicking, Canberra has been careful since the East Timor intervention in 1999 not to upset its neighbor.

Many Indonesian politicians and military leaders regard East Timor's bloody secession as an Australian-instigated conspiracy and believe Canberra harbors similar independence aspirations for other restless provinces, like Papua.

Paradoxically, the Australian presence on Indonesian soil may ultimately inflame the Islamic extremism that officials are blaming for the Bali attacks, said Scott Burchill, an international relations expert at Melbourne's Deakin University.

Others fear that more forceful diplomacy focused on the war on terrorism will backfire if Indonesia, hamstrung by domestic politics, fails to catch the culprits.

"In the end we cannot afford to hold the future of our relationship with Indonesia hostage to a satisfactory outcome that the government in Jakarta may be incapable of delivering anyway," wrote Hugh White, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, in a commentary.