Canberra's new bond with Jakarta buries old fears

Canberra's new bond with Jakarta buries old fears

Milton Osborne gives an Australian viewpoint on the new
agreement.

Nothing gives greater point to the significance of the
security agreement signed between Australia and Indonesia on Dec.
18 than the release, barely two weeks later, of previously secret
Cabinet documents dealing with Australia's policies towards
Indonesia in 1965.

With Sukarno still Indonesia's president then and his policy
of "Confrontation" of Malaysia still in place, the then Menzies
government gave its approval for Australian troops to go into
action against Indonesian forces, including cross-border
operations by an SAS squadron in Borneo.

With Sukarno's ouster later that same year and the accession
to power of President Soeharto's "New Order" government,
relations between the two countries improved rapidly, but a
legacy of distrust remained on the Australian side. In part, this
was a reflection of an ingrained xenophobia on both sides of
Australian politics that fed on irrational fears of "Asian
hordes" pouring south into Australia, as if by the force of
gravity.

In part, too, negative views of Indonesia were promoted by
those on the Left in Australian politics and in universities
which refused to abandon their romantic image of Sukarno's
Indonesia in spite of its demonstrable economic failures and
foreign policy adventurism. For these people, a military-
dominated government in Jakarta represented the worst of all
possible worlds.

Yet, by the time Gough Whitlam's government came to power in
1972, there seemed hope that relations between the two countries
could be maintained on an even keel, if not necessarily be marked
by notable warmth. East Timor's integration with Indonesia in
1975 changed all that.

The integration, and its aftermath, became a political
albatross around the neck of every Australian government in the
next two decades. The reasons why this should be so are complex,
even baffling, to many observers, including Australians.

That Indonesian actions and policies in Timor have often been
ham-fisted and, particularly in the years immediately after the
integration, unnecessarily brutal, is part of the explanation
for the depth of feeling the issue has aroused in Australia. But,
in themselves, they hardly explain the grip East Timor has had on
public opinion.

The best, if incomplete, explanation seems to lie in the
extent to which there is a remarkable coalition of groups
opposing Indonesia's presence in East Timor and the degree
to which these groups are prepared to place that opposition above
concern for Australia's broader relationship with Indonesia.

While the Left of the Labor Party has been most prominent in
criticizing Indonesian actions in Timor, they are part of a wider
coalition that includes Timorese emigres resident in Australia,
Catholic churchmen, non-governmental organizations and ex-
servicemen who fought in Timor during World War II. When the 1991
"Dili Massacre" took place, there was no shortage of voices ready
to fill the media with critical comment on Indonesian actions.

Against this background, Prime Minister Paul Keating's notable
achievement has been to make clear his government's conviction
that Australian policy towards Indonesia could not be dominated
by the Timor issue. As he colorfully put it, relations with
Indonesia could not be put in "hock" by concerns over Timor.

Having said some time ago that he believed good relations with
Indonesia were the single most important aspect of Australian
foreign policy, his success in concluding a security agreement
gives tangible testimony to that conviction. In a fashion that
invites comparison with President Nixon's opening to China,
Keating has demonstrated that the leader of the Australian Labor
Party, which still has strong left-wing elements, could embrace a
policy that most conservative politicians would have hesitated to
pursue, whatever their private wishes.

Criticism of the security agreement has been predictable and
is likely to continue for some time. The so-called East Timor
lobby was stunned by the announcement of the agreement but can be
expected to return to the charge once Australia wakes from its
summer torpor.

But the critics now face a fait accompli. And they will have
to contend with the general support for the agreement that has
been given both by the Labor Party's main political opponents
and, with some reservations, by editorial writers in leading
newspapers.

Some criticism has been leveled at Keating for the secrecy
with which the security agreement was negotiated. Given the
nature of political debate in Australia, few would disagree with
the conclusion that to have done otherwise would almost certainly
have put the whole aim of achieving an agreement in jeopardy.

Other critics have raised the improbable specter of Australia
being caught up in Indonesia's efforts to suppress internal
rebellion. Nothing in the agreement validates this view any more
than the agreement can be portrayed as somehow anti-China in
character.

While the terms of the security agreement certainly envisage
some expansion of already existing defense cooperation, the
fundamental importance of the document for Australia lies in its
symbolism. At a stroke, signature of the document has made clear
that, at the highest official levels, Australia has laid to rest
any lingering perceptions that Indonesia is a potential, if
publicly unidentified, enemy.

East Timor will continue to be an irritant in Australia's
relations with Indonesia and differing perceptions on human
rights issues will cause tensions from time to time. But, for
the future, such irritants and tensions will occur in a different
framework, one in which the primacy of maintaining good relations
with Indonesia can no longer be an issue in Australia.

Dr. Milton Osborne, a former senior Australian intelligence
analyst, is now a freelance writer and consultant on Asian issues
based in Sydney.