Defense pact

Defense pact

Nobody can blame the Defense Minister, Moch. Mahfud MD, for
lacking imagination in his honest effort to build up a defense
mechanism around this archipelagic republic. His proposal to set
up a new intelligence ring around his ministry and around the
presidency shows his creative mind, but the idea has been
rejected outright by those more experienced in the military and
civil intelligence work as being unnecessary and energy wasting.
If he wants to please the President, who would get a daily
intelligence report under the scheme, maybe he is on the right
track.

To counter the rumored threat of an embargo imposed by the
United States on Indonesia in case of a conflict, the minister
thinks inviting some Asian powers to form a defense pact might be
the answer to scare U.S. intervening, through its ambassador, in
Indonesia's internal affairs. And in the minister's mind, of
course, this is to keep U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers
also at bay. (What about its intercontinental ballistic
missiles?)

Original though such a proposal may sound, it also shows the
inexperience, if not naivety, of the minister in international
politics since the Asian African Conference in Bandung in 1955,
Indonesia's greatest asset in international politics, has been
its neutrality in the form of the principle of non alignment. In
that spirit, forming a military pact is tantamount to inviting
the devil to stage a war.

The success of Indonesia's foreign policy has been based on
the strength of morality, on containment of the enemy and not
confronting it, unless you are sure you're fighting a little ant
and not a giant King Kong. Speaker of the House, Akbar Tandjung,
does not see any foreign military threat at present. Foreign
minister Alwi Shihab believes military pacts are no longer
relevant when the cold war is a thing of the past.

Columnist Gwynne Dyer wrote in The Jakarta Post, Oct. 26, a
challenging, if not misinformed, article about West Papua. He
asks defiantly whether it will one day become the next East Timor
for Indonesia? If I am correct, he blames violence in that
territory to the Indonesia military and security agents (provoked
by foreign spies?). I think this is a nice opportunity for
minister Mahfud to start a counter-attack with his pen without
resorting to a defense pact.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta